At A Glance: Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing (SEM) is one of the ways a business can gain traffic and visibility from search engines. It is the realm of paid advertising, while search engine optimization (SEO) is the unpaid realm. While the principle of it is simple, the application of those principles can be complex. To ensure the best results, many businesses hire SEM specialists and consultants on Upwork to work their magic.

So how does it work? Typically, when someone searches for something on the Internet or clicks through a directory, they are in what is often called “hunt mode.” This means they are searching for information either directly or indirectly. Specialists in SEM know how to understand this hunt mode and determine where the person is in the buying cycle. It may be they are searching for something needed at an unspecified date in the future or are planning to make a purchase immediately. The search engine provides them with the information they require to either act upon or file away for future use.

This means search engine traffic is a non-intrusive form of marketing. There are no interruptions to what the person is doing to bring an ad to their attention – they simply provide the ad as part of the search engine, and it fits into the results in a natural manner. The freelancer providing this service will create something that doesn’t strike the customer as advertising but rather as relevant information.