Are you looking for new and exciting technology which will help you bring new consumers to your website? When it comes to attracting new consumers, there are only so many tactics that you can use. One tactic that is quickly gaining notoriety in the world of online advertising is search engine marketing.

Search Engine Marketing, which is also commonly called SEM, is a process which involves manipulating how search engines function in order to improve a website's page ranking when certain key phrases are searched for. The return on investment for search engine marketing is excellent, if you compare it to all other online marketing means. Direct mail campaigns and banner advertisements may be effective, but not nearly as effective as search engine marketing can be. Using search engine marketing techniques, you will get conversion rates which are much better, costs per-click which are much lower, and acquisition costs which are barely existent. Studies over time have shown that while banner advertisements do have the power to bring customers to websites, most consumers are five times more likely to purchase products at websites found through search listings than through online banner advertisements.

Market research has shown that search engine listings which are high in the search list generally drive the best possible branding, or awareness. Consumers tend to recall around 60-percent of the websites that are numbered 1-5 in a search list, versus only roughly 20-percent of online banner advertisements. A search engine marketer knows this because he does nothing else.

Google is considered to be the most productive of all search engines, as it is a major source for referrals, and the center target for nearly every single search engine marketing campaign. Other popular search engines include Yahoo, Lycos, MSN, AltaVista and AOL. Search engine marketing involves applying calculated methodologies in order to deliver results through analysis of search engine listing criteria and indexing parameters or indexing algorithm. Search engine marketing is both an appealing and quite effective method for both marketing and advertising a website in order to reach your target audience.

Because search engine marketing affects search engine results, anyone who is searching for subjects relating to your niche will surely find your website if you are listed high in the search results. Why waste time and money paying for advertisements and link exchanges, when you can utilize ethical search engine marketing methods to launch your website into the top of the listings for all of your most relevant search terms?

So, why should you utilize search engine marketing (SEM) techniques? Because search engine marketing is the most cost effective marketing channel on the entire internet. Additionally, search engine marketing is the most direct marketing channel on the internet as well.

Search engine marketing generates more leads than any other form of direct marketing, because search advertising tends to generate more interest than sponsored advertising or banner advertising. Searching generates more leads than advertisements, because consumers are more likely to turn to a search engine for the products and services they seek, rather than hoping to be lucky with a poorly placed advertisement.

Search marketing also tends to generate the cheapest possible cost per response, at around $.45 per response, rather than the $.55-$2.00 offered by e-mail and banner ad advertising. Because so few have realized the potential of search engine marketing, the search engine environment is not very competitive, making now a great time to get in on the market before interest in SEM begins to build.

So what are your options? There are two different ways to handle search engine marketing, in house and outside. Nearly two thirds of all search engine advertisers claim that using outside search engine marketer is more effective than when using in house search engine marketer. Because search engine algorithms and requirements are becoming more complex over time, professional assistance is necessary to contribute the necessary tools, knowledge and time in order to stay ahead of the pack.

There are in house developers who can utilize the techniques necessary to give you power in the search engine marketing world, but unless they are consistently developing new SEM methods, they will not be able to keep up with the constantly changing rules and algorithms associated with search engine results. Hire an external search engine marketer for the best results.

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Gunnar Berglund is a veteran Internet marketer since 2000. He is the owner of www.houseofseo.com, performing multilingual search engine optimization and search engine marketing.