Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the strategy of marketing and advertising a website on the major search engines and directories like Google, Yahoo, MSN and the Open Directory (DMOZ) in order to gain online traffic.  Search Engine Marketing typically encompasses three major components: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, and paid inclusion (paid directory listings like Yahoo! Directory).

ISM | Internet Group is a leading industrial Search Engine Marketing company, with extensive experience in website search optimization, Google AdWords, and paid inclusion.  Contact ISM today to learn more about any of these components, or creating a targeted Search Engine Marketing campaign for your company’s website.

ISM | Internet Group can help your company’s website gain significant ground in the search engine ranking game by applying search engine optimization best practices. Through comprehensive keyword research, keyword density analysis, search friendly copywriting, custom page coding and proper website submission, our team can help you achieve the organic search results you desire.

Pay-Per-Click advertising refers to the paid ad placement for keyword phrases on search engines like Google and Yahoo. ISM | Internet Group has certified Google AdWord Professionals who can help you select targeted keyword phrases for ad placement, generate ad copy, determine appropriate cost per-click bid rates, and establish a PPC budget.

ISM | Internet Group utilizes a 4E process (explore, evaluate, expand and enhance) to ensure maximum ROI on your PPC advertising program.

Explore

The ISM 4E exploration phase requires information gathering and assessment, which includes
previous PPC account data, internal Web analytics data and peripheral research on customers and competitors. Determining the amount of additional keyword and competitive market research depends on the quality and quantity of information collected in the initial research phase. The desired goal is to formulate a PPC advertising program test campaign that runs anywhere from two to four weeks in duration.

Evaluate

The evaluation phase consists of implementing the PPC program test strategy (keywords, text ads and associated landing pages) and monitoring performance via analytical tools. In this phase, the goal is to determine which keyword phrases, ad copy, landing pages and bid strategies have the greatest potential, and will serve as the foundation for the ongoing PPC advertising program.

Expand

The expansion phase focuses on leveraging insights from the evaluation phase to increase the number of keyword phrases in the overall PPC advertising program to generate the desired quantity of leads or sales without sacrificing conversion performance overall. For example, a test campaign may incorporate 50 keyword phrases, while the expanded campaign may include 500.

Enhance

The enhancement phase involves constant tuning and tweaking of keyword phrases, text ad copy, landing page elements and bid strategies. Typically, this phase incorporates A/B or multivariate testing to ensure optimal PPC program performance. Developing a highly successful PPC advertising program is an iterative process that is never fully-optimized due to changes in the technology, industry and competitive landscape. As such, it is often necessary to cycle back to the exploration phase and test peripheral keywords, ad copy and landing page creative.

In addition to search engines, many directories like DMOZ (free) exist that have fee-based listing charges – some as little as $30 annually. ISM | Internet Group can help you evaluate these paid directories and select those that can have the greatest potential impact on your site’s online rankings.