SEM- A Beginner Guide & Its Benefits for a Business?

SEO, SEM, SMO or CRO are some of the most common terms heard by businesses these days. For a layperson we would like to say that all these terms have the same concept. Here we will be placing a specific focus on understanding what is SEM?

What is SEM?

As defined by experts, SEM is a strategy that is meant to help small business to reach out to new potential customers and generate more revenue while trimming the costs. SEM is an abbreviation of Search Engine Marketing.  It is a specific type of marketing for the search engines and is mainly paid and works with paid search tools and Google Ad-Words etc. Bing or Yahoo is also worth considering in this manner.

How Does SEM Works?

SEM works by leveraging the power of search engines like Google with an aim to reach out to potential customers at the perfect time and place with the help of targeted strategies. SEM is also sometimes called as;

·        Paid advertisement

·        paid search ads

·        Pay Per Click or PPC

·        Ad words

Common Terms Used in SEM:

SEM often uses some terms that are important for any beginner to understand. These terms are;

·        CPC- Short form off Cost Per Click and is all about how much you pay when someone clicks on your ad

·        Impressions- How many times your ad is shown on screen. it does not count the times a person see it

·        CTR- Short form of Click through Rate and is about the number of clicks you get on your website from people who see the ad.

·        CPM- Short form Cost per million impressions and is about the way to pay for an ad on a search engine.

What is the Difference between SEM and Social Media Advertisement?

Some confuse Social Media Marketing with SEM and believe that both are the same things with different names. This is not true. Social media platforms also offer paid advertisement services that can be specific to the needs of a business. However, SEM actually involved the search functioning.

In Social Media Advertisement the ads are generally displayed on the basis of data that social media company gathers for an individual or a company. It helps the companies to target people on the basis of specific interest, buying behaviorism locations and other specifications.

While on the other hand the Search Engine Marketing is based on the keywords and special phrases that are generally used by the customer to access any information on search engines. These phrases or keywords are used in specific patterns to target people when they are performing any search on search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo.

It is important to note that Social Media Marketing and SEM are not interchangeable but they can work together to generate effective results for a business. it is thus important for you to make sure that you are hiring the right social media marketing expert of let’s say digital marketing professional to give you the right services and put the efforts in the right direction to generate your desired results for your business.