Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is an immediate way to advertise your business online, and offers you much more control than traditional marketing methods which can be time consuming and labour intensive.
Search Engine Marketing is where you pay search engines to place your sponsored ad next to natural listings on the results pages of the likes of Google and Yahoo! This type of paid advertising on search engines is called Pay Per Click (PPC) search marketing, since you only pay when a potential customer clicks on your advert and visits your site. PPC ads often appear at the top of the page or right hand side as sponsored ads.
The most popular Search Engine Marketing services are Google AdWords, Yahoo! and to a lesser extent Bing. Yahoo! Search Marketing, formerly known as Overture, is the second most important SEM service, and although it provides less traffic than Google it should not be discounted.
Search Engine Marketing can produces instant results, and you can stop and start your PPC campaign at any time you choose. This makes SEM a great method to launch a new site as a short term measure or to increase numbers of visitors to a site when business is slow, or for seasonal promotions.