Search Engine Marketing & PR

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the combined use of paid search advertising, in-line content advertising, optimization of public relations news releases on the Internet, and SEO for optimal search placement for organic results.

SEM primarily focuses on paid advertising. SEM mostly uses paid placement services whether that is placement of your ads on search results pages (SERPS), article content links, sponshorship links, or graphic advertisements on the Internet.

Although many marketers or business people consider Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as part of Search Engine Marketing, SEO is unique in that it is very challenging to obtain natural ranking rather than pay for placement.

SEO IS THE EQUIVALENT OF MEDIA AND PUBLIC RELATIONS, WHEREAS SEM IS THE EQUIVALENT OF PAID ADVERTISING. In paid advertising, you can control the message, placement, frequency and other factors. SEO is like public relations, where you don't necessarily control the message or content, placement, or frequency. As in traditional off-line marketing, you need to have a mix of both for optimum Internet marketing.

It used to be the case that a public relations professional would fax or email press releases to editors and writers. Now, with Internet marketing, public relations is delivered to the Internet customers online.

When the fundamental shift in medium changed, so did the ability to control the reach and effectiveness of public relations to closer align with specific information being searched on the Internet. Rather than have a press release go out onto the web randomly in "news," the actual public or media relations had many more options available to them to target key words. Because the medium is digital, press releases now contain keywords, links, and can end at lead capture forms.