Chinese Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

 

Search engine marketing (SEM) is to promote a business, product or service by advertising on a search engine to display an advertisement on search results pages when a targeted search keyword or phrase is being used. 

Even though the aims of both search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are to catch users' attention to drive traffics to the website by increasing its visibility on the search results page, they are completely different techniques and designed to serve different purposes. Depending on the objective of a business, it may choose to use SEO or SEM or both to promote its business.

Differences between SEM and SEO

Unlike SEO which is to improve organic page ranking by applying optimization techniques to web pages and paying nothing to the search engine, search engine marketing (SEM) is to promote business by buying advertising spaces from the search engine in order to display an advertisement on search results page when a targeted search phrase is being used. The advertisement is displayed within one of the designated advertising areas, usually on the top, in the right-hand column or on the bottom of the search results page.

What Need to be Done to Start a SEM Campaign

SEM is often also being referred as Pay Per Click (PPC) service, you only pay the search engine when a user actually clicked your SEM advertisement. Often you have to compete with other advertisers to bid for an advertising slot if the keyword you choose is in high demand. Tools provided by search engines, such as Google AdWords or Bing Ads, give all the information you need to know to select a keyword, such as how often they are used and how much money you are expected to pay, etc.  All major search engines offer their own pay per click service, e.g., Google AdWords, Baidu Campaign and Bing Ads.

The key for conducting a successful search engine marketing is to plan, research, analyze and select the right keywords that potential customers likely to use to search the products and services that your business offers, with low bidding price for them. Unlike search engine optimization which may take months to show its effects, search engine marketing will bring immediate result. After setting up your SEM Pay Per Click campaign, your advertisement will be displayed as soon as someone meeting your predefined criteria searches on the web.