What does search engine marketing mean?

There are several types of search engine marketing tools one can opt for to get the benefits of online advertising options. Search engine marketing involves attracting traffic to a particular website through search engine result pages also known as SERPS.

The most used among all is search engine optimization, wherein a search engine marketing expert modifies html code, URL or rewrites content to make a website more search engine friendly, increasing its ranking on the search engine. By this way, more number of people are routed to the website due to natural or organic search results generated through the search engines. Search engine marketing or SEO gives the best result compared to the other forms of search engine marketing tools. There's only one hitch in this kind of online marketing, since there are only 10 positions available on the search result page on any of the search engines and since the competition to attain high ranking on these pages is high, one cannot assure high rating.

Second type of search engine marketing is known as PPC or pay per click advertising. Pay per click is a sponsored link placed on a search engine result or a blog or message board, so when a user searches for a key word close to the subject of your website, link to your website is placed first on the searched result page/blog or message board leading the user to click on it and reach your website. One has to pay for the every click that guided the user to your website. One has to pay proper attention to the text used for creating such advert/link. The more effective and close it is to the keywords/topics searched, the more effective it is. The cost involved in this kind of online marketing varies for different websites.

Through affiliate marketing, traffic routed to one website benefits the other associate websites. This type of search engine marketing effort is less effective compared to the two discussed above. The next kind of search engine marketing is a tool where a search engines charges your website for appearing it on the search engine index. This tool is known as paid inclusion, wherein a fee is charged for a year for one webpage. Sometimes, fees are also taken per click similar to the pay per click tool. This kind of search engine marketing is effective when the web content is dynamic in nature and is changed often.

When an advert is allowed to be visible for a fixed number of times through the entire range of web pages, this search engine marketing tool is known as cost per impression or CMP advertising. Under this scheme, a contract is signed through an ad agency, and a commission is paid to the agency by the advertiser. When all form of search engine marketing advertising are compared, search engine optimization is proved to be the best among all. It provided high level of desired result though the investment may be a little high. But it is necessary to hire a professional search engine marketing firm to handle this type of search engine marketing.