Search Engine Marketing, 101

What you do not know about Search Engine Marketing could hurt you. If you are not familiar with Search Engine Marketing, this article may be helpful. For new online entrepreneurs, there is much to be learned. On the other hand, even seasoned online business marketers may find it hard to keep with the latest techniques of Search Engine Marketing.

Search Engine Marketing, SEM, includes a variety of processes to increase visibility of websites on search engine result pages, or SERPs.
Search Engine Marketing consists of Pay per click advertising, paid inclusion, and Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.
Pay per click ads may generate business, but more often than not, you may be paying for casual clicks by curiosity seekers rather than potential customers. With paid inclusion, you can subscribe your Website address with the search engines, to insure it will be on the SERPs, although this may not generate any visits. Additionally, Google, does not utilize this feature.

SEO is the most commonly used form of Search Engine Marketing. Probably the best known approach is the use of key words in articles on your blog. Other SEO tools are use of long tails, linking, building a trusted name though posting on social networking sites and contributing to Wikipedia, and Digg etc.
Trying to use search engine marketing tools on your own is difficult. Search Engine Marketing services are available and ensure you are using the tools of the day. Your techniques will be kept current with the processes used by the major search engines. Also, many Search Engine Marketing services will provide you with measurements such as which key words were used and the number of hits generated. Using a Search Engine Marketing service will also help you understand what other techniques are helping your business, so you can capitalize on them.