What is search engine marketing?

Search engine marketing is all about getting high search engine ranking, using a professional search engine optimisation (SEO) company such as NVisage. Search engine optimisation or search engine marketing is the process of promoting a business online to achieve top search engine rankings for relevant, targeted keyphrases. Search engine optimisation will increase qualified traffic, generate enquiries and convert more sales from the UK and abroad.

Figures vary, but commonly up to 80% of people discover a web site for the first time using search engines. The position a web site occupies in the results, for any given term, can have a drastic impact upon visitor traffic and consequently sales online.

There are principally two methods of search engine marketing to increase your profile within search engine results:

Search engine optimisation

Search engine optimisation can also be called organic search engine marketing, as it is something inherent to how a web site is created. This relies upon optimising pages for specific terms to promote a company's products and services more effectively, and obtaining good links to those pages.

Paid placement/pay per click services

For competitive terms, it can be very difficult to get good search engine placements, so search engines and a number of other online organisations offer to promote your web site, via paying for high profile placements.

The most common example is Google Adwords, which displays an advert of your web site based upon key words on the first page of its search engine results. Apart from a small setup fee, you only pay for the number of times a visitor actually clicks on the advert and arrives at your site, hence 'Pay Per Click'. The price for terms varies depending upon their marketability and how much other people are willing to pay for them.

Paid placement programmes are similar in that they are based upon how much traffic is generated, but rely on a third party such as Overture or e-spotting to display your directory listing within the main Google results.

How to use search engine marketing effectively

'Research, research, research' is the mantra at the heart of effective search engine marketing and maximising return upon investment. Whether you are looking to embark upon a paid Adwords campaign or want to exploit your search engine positions to their fullest, you need to be aware of how people find your products.

The starting point is to identify the niches and categories your products and services occupy, identify your different types of consumers and create a list of keywords. The next stage is to research these keywords in order to identify the specific search terms that people are actually using to search for your products.

We also work with Sussex telemarketing company, Nido, to undertake in-depth research of your customer's search behaviours. Our web site developers then use this information to optimise your web pages specifically for terms that are used by people who want your products and services.

For a free initial chat about how NVisage can maximise your web presence, please call Clinton Porter on (01273) 384287