What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)? Types And Examples (2024)

Search engine marketing is a very effective digital marketing channel. With search marketing, you can increase the visibility of your website in search engine results using paid and free methods.

In this guide, you’ll learn what search engine marketing is, the different types of SEM, and how they work.

What Is Search Engine Marketing?

Search Engine Marketing is the digital marketing process of increasing traffic from search engines primarily through paid ads or organically. The overall goal of SEM is to increase visibility in search engines by achieving higher rankings in organic search results or top positions for ad placements.

Why Is SEM Important?

Billions of people turn to a search engine (in most cases, Google) to look for information or products. Statistics show that most users click on one of the top ads or one of the first five organic results.

The search engine marketing processes will help you get search engine traffic by placing your ads or content in one of the top results for the keywords that matter for your business or website.

SEM vs. SEO

The main difference between SEM and SEO is that SEO involves techniques for optimizing a website to get organic (free) traffic from search engines while SEM involves strategies to get traffic and increase visibility in organic and paid search results.

In essence, SEO is part of SEM but many people have associated SEM with only paid ads.

Types of Search Engine Marketing

The most important search engine marketing types are Pay-Per-Click Ads (PPC), SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and Local SEO.

With PPC ads, you can get immediate visibility on the SERPs by bidding on specific keywords you want your ads to show. With SEO, you can rank higher in organic results by creating useful and relevant content. With Local SEO, you can get more exposure in the local search results for location-specific queries.

1. Pay Per Click Ads (PPC)

One of the ways to take advantage of the millions of users that use search engines daily and get targeted traffic to your website is through paid search ads.

If you search Google, you will notice that sponsored ads appear above the organic results. This is what paid search advertising is about. Instead of trying to achieve high rankings through SEO, you can pay your way to the top.

Of course, as we will see below, that’s not so easy. It gets more complicated when several advertisers compete for one of the top ad positions.

The most commonly used model is the PPC (Pay Per Click), which means that you pay only when someone clicks on your ad, and the most widely used PPC platform is Google Ads.

Google Ads is the platform you can use to show your ads on Google, YouTube, Google Discover, or the thousands of websites that participate in Google Adsense.

How does PPC Work?

The way it works is simple but gets more complicated when dealing with niches and keywords with a lot of competition. Here is an overview of the process:

• You can create a free account with Google Ads.
• You set up advertising campaigns. Each campaign can contain several ad groups, keywords, and ads.
• You specify your target audience, i.e., which people can see your ads (you can narrow down your selection by country, location, etc).
• You start the campaign and only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
• You monitor the results of your campaigns and make the necessary changes.

How much you pay every time someone clicks on your ad depends on many factors. Google Ads will indicate in advance how much you will be charged per click, but the actual amount is decided when it happens.

Google Ads in an auction-based system. This means that the cost of each click and the position of your ad will depend on ‘demand and supply’.

Every time a search is made on Google, Google Ads runs an auction for the available ad positions. Advertisers willing to pay more and have higher quality ads will most likely satisfy the user intent and win the top positions.

Consider this example to understand how SEM works.

Let’s say that 20 advertisers sell ‘engagement rings’ and want their ads shown on the first page of Google when people search for ‘Buy an Engagement Ring’.

Google shows 3-4 ads above the organic search results. This means there are only a few ad spots on the first page, but there are 20 advertisers.

Which ads will show on the ad positions? This is where pay-per-click marketing comes into play. Like SEO, the Google Ads system considers several rules before deciding where each ad will be shown.

Advertisers can control some factors, such as the price they are willing to pay per click, the quality of the ads, etc. Some are decided during the auction, and some are only known to Google.

You need to understand that while Paid advertising is a great way to promote your website on Google, it’s not always as simple as setting up an account and running a campaign.

You need to optimize your campaigns through A/B testing to get the best ROI from your ad spend. This process takes time and requires specific skills. It’s easy to lose money on ads without having a positive return, so sometimes, it is best to leave this task toprofessional marketers.

Benefits of PPC Advertising

• With PPC ads, you can get results much faster than with SEO.
• You can bid on specific keywords, enabling your ads to show to users who are actively searching for products or services you are offering.
• You can target a specific audience by adding criteria for who will see your ads.
• PPC and SEO can work together in harmony. If you already have some good results with SEO, you can increase your market share by running ads for the same keywords that generate organic traffic for your business.

Disadvantages of PPC Advertising

• It’s expensive. PPC ads are costly, especially for popular keywords.
• Unlike SEO, your traffic will drop when you stop paying for ads.
• It takes time and money to optimize a campaign for conversions.
• It’s difficult for small businesses to compete with companies with bigger PPC budgets.

2. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of optimizing your website to achieve higher rankings in search engines for specific keywords.

SEO principles can help you create high-quality websites with good content and satisfy the user intent.

How does SEO Work?

SEO is a complex process, and to get it right, you must consider many parameters. To make the whole process easier, it is broken down into the following SEO types:

Technical SEO – optimize your website for the crawling and indexing process so that search engines can discover, read, and index your website.

On-Page SEO – optimize all website pages individually and give search engines the right signals to understand your content.

Off-Page SEO – promote your website online, get good quality backlinks, and prove to search engine algorithms that your website deserves one of the top spots for the keywords you want.

You may also come across other terms that describe specific aspects of SEO, like:

• Content SEO – give both users and search engines the content they want and keep them happy
• eCommerce SEO – SEO rules that apply to eCommerce websites only.
• Mobile SEO – make it easy for users to find and use your website on the go and from their mobile or tablet devices.
• International SEO – SEO settings for multilingual websites

Benefits of SEO

• More traffic. The higher you rank, the more traffic you get. SEO is the way to go if your goal with search marketing is to get traffic to your website without paying for ads.
• Targeted traffic. Unlike traffic from social networks or other sources, organic traffic converts better because it’s targeted.
• Trust and recognition. Users trust search engines because they know that they have strict rules as to which websites are shown in the search results, and turn, they trust websites that rank in the top positions.
• Increases brand awareness. Trust generates more conversions and increases recognition and brand awareness, making your digital marketing efforts in other channels easier.
• Create better websites. SEO is not just about search engines but mainly about users. A fully optimized website for search engines is great for users.

Disadvantages of SEO

• It takes more time to work than PPC. SEO is a long-term marketing strategy that takes months to start generating results.
• SEO rules change all the time. Google reportedly makes hundreds of changes to its search algorithms annually that impact search rankings and traffic.
• Too competitive. Ranking high in the search results for keywords that can generate business has become very competitive.
• Requires ongoing work. With SEO, you must keep creating new content and improving your time. A process that takes time and costs a lot of money.
• Results cannot be guaranteed. Unlike PPC, where visibility is somewhat predictable, SEO cannot offer predictable results due to the nature of search algorithms.

3. Local SEO

Local SEO is part of general SEO but is considered a type of SEM because it involves specific techniques to increase your visibility in the local search results. Local businesses that want to get customers to their door prioritize local SEO over other types to get free traffic and leads.

How does local SEO Work?

Optimizing your website to appear for location-aware searches includes several key strategies:

• Create a Google Business Profile listing: One of the most critical steps in local SEO is claiming and optimizing your Google Profile listing. This involves providing accurate information about your business (including images, contact details, hours of operation, and more).
• Optimize your titles, meta descriptions, and URLs to include location-specific keywords.
• Get backlinks from other websites (local newspapers, local directories, and other local businesses) to increase your domain authority and rank higher in the local results.
• Get positive customer reviews on your Google Business Listing and other review platforms (Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook Local Marketplace, etc).
• Add the relevant structured data on your website to help search engines associate your website and physical location.

Benefits of Local SEO

• Increase visibility in local search results and get more customers.
• Easier to implement than general SEO and PPC.
• Cost-effective compared to PPC Ads.

Disadvantages of Local SEO

• Google algorithms are constantly changing the rules of local SEO rankings.
• Limited reach. Only customers in your geographical area will see your business in their SERPS.
• It is too competitive, especially in areas where many local businesses are competing for a position in the local results.

How To Get Started With SEM

If you are new to search marketing, you must understand that to succeed, you should prioritize the user experience over anything else. Your first task is to make sure you have a great website that is functional and easy to use, then to work on your content and deliver the best possible result to your users.

Once you have this in place, your next step is to start working on your SEO to improve your organic rankings gradually. In parallel, start working on your PPC campaigns and maximize your ROI (ROI).

Enrolling in a good SEM training course is the best way to build the necessary skills.