What is search engine marketing today ?

First and most popular is the Search engine advertising. This type of advertising includes the Pay-per-Click and contextual advertising. By paying your guaranteed a placement on the result pages of the search site and within its distribution network. The major players on this market are Google Adwords and Overture in North America and Espotting in Europe.

The key factors of search engine advertising for a successful campaign are: an in-depht Keyword research to reach the target market and the bid price, it is not always worth bidding more than the competition. As usual creating an ad copy that is appealing for your prospects will be a plus.


The second type of advertising is the famous paid submission to directories. This marketing program implies that the website owners pay for a human based review of their sites. Remember that the inclusion is not always guaranteed, you could pay your submission to Yahoo! directory but if the editor in charge of your industry believes that your site does not carry much value for the internet user it won't be included, no refund. To have your website included in the major internet directories at least be sure to select the apropriate category, too many submissions are rejected because the submitter believes that paying for the service, the directory editors will find out where to include the site: no way.


The search engine optimization is the fast growing market. The organic also called natural results is about designing a search engine-friendly website to maximize the odds to appear on the top result pages for the chosen keywords - key phrases. It is a science of key-words placement, content enhancement, site structure and link popularity campaign to reach a top ranking. The search engine optimization has been often forgotten by business developers but is the major asset of a search engine marketing campaign. A successful SEO campaign will always include the website code compliance, a strategic keyword placement on your pages and the creation of incoming links to your site.

The price engines, also called aggregators make it easier for the online shoppers to find information about products, associated prices, shipping rates and availability. Famous on the US market are: Bizrate, PriceGrabber, Dealtime, Yahoo! Shopping and Froogle (Google), they offer a broad range of pricing and features.


Developing a website, product or brand, especially when your business use to be strictly off-line, may involve some risks and for sure some investment. For your search engine marketing campaign, as a business owner or a marketing specialist you should consider implementing the best practices on the market and make sure that all your efforts are going towards success.