The beginner’s guide to search engine marketing

Your website may be up and running, but it means nothing if people can’t find you. People use search engines to get information online, and the experts will tell you that a listing outside the top 30 is equivalent to placing a billboard in the woods – nobody will know you’re there.

Search engines distinguish between two sets of search results: organic and sponsored. The organic search results usually appear on the left, and are not influenced by payment. Sponsored links usually appear at the top and on the right. Advertisers bid for placement, and pay the search engine for every click on their link.

As search engines are the doorway to the internet, any online advertising strategy should include search engine marketing. Search engine marketing consists of two parts: search engine optimisation and pay per click advertising.

This part of search engine marketing focuses on the search engine’s organic results. SEO takes into account how search engines work and what people search for, and then optimises the website to achieve higher rankings when the relevant keywords are used. By making changes to the content and structure of a website, it can be made more accessible for search engines, leading to higher search results. Methods that are used include improving the content of the website to include more of the relevant keywords users will search for.

The other leg of search engine marketing focuses on sponsored results. Advertisers can bid to have their links listed when users search for keywords that are relevant to their businesses. The advertiser only pays when a user clicks on the link.

The challenge for advertisers is to pick the relevant keywords to bid on and to create relevant, compelling content for the advertisement. A budget hotel in Port Elizabeth should for example include words like “budget” and “Port Elizabeth” in its list, and not only bid on “hotel”.