Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing (Search engine marketing, or SEM) is a branch of online marketing and includes any promotional measures to attract visitors to a website via web search engines. Search engine marketing is divided into search engine advertising (Search engine advertising, SEA ) and search engine optimization (Search Engine Optimization, SEO). Frequently SEM is also used as a synonym for search advertising, which refers to the insertion of advertising displays, so-called Sponsors Links ( Paid Listing ), which are presented according to the principle of keyword advertising on the search results page refers.

Target

The aim of search engine marketing is to improve the visibility within the search engine results lists. A distinction between the organic search results, which can be influenced by a search engine optimization and the purchased advertisements that represent the actual proportion of search engine marketing. The search engine marketing activities lead to an ad on one of the top places will appear in the search engine results. Here, the organic search engine results are not in competition with the advertising. For both result lists on the result pages predefined areas. Both the organic search results and the advertisements based on our own ranking factors that have a certain weight within the search engine algorithms. Neither of the two lists of results has an impact on the presentation of others. Ad serving the advertising display is based on the keyword advertising principle, that is, to buy a position on the first page of search engine results for specific keywords. In the large general search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing paid search results are summarized in a advertising block and so visually lifted from the unpaid ( organic ) results.

In addition to the direct promotion of products search engine marketing is also gaining in public relations and corporate branding is becoming increasingly important.

The search engine marketing is mostly taken by the attending media agency or a specialized Adwords Agency in larger companies. For small and medium businesses search engine marketing is mainly the responsibility of the internal marketing department.

Criticism

A number of measures to place your own page at the forefront within the organic search engine result lists that are manipulative nature and are valued by the search engines self-critical. The boundaries between acceptable methods of search engine optimization that adhere to the guidelines of the search engines, and unacceptable manipulations that need to be classified as spamdexing, therefore, are fluid. The case law on the question of admissibility of misleading competition keywords is uneven. The Higher Regional Court of Cologne objected to the Internet advertising a ghost writer, who promoted " buy thesis " in the HTML source code of its website with the statement, not, as had been made ​​clear in the visible part of the website that the ghostwriter offering only legal services.