SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

Search Engine Marketing (or SEM) is a broad online marketing term that refers to driving traffic to a website from search engine results pages. This can be achieved through search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC), or a combination of both.

The primary goal of SEM marketers is to have their organic content or paid ads placed in the most visual spots on the SERP. The more visible the placement on the SERP, the more likely the search engine users are to click through to the website.

This could be:

• Getting their content to the top of the organic search engine results
• Getting their content into highly visible SERP features
• Placing ads at the top of the SERPs

By doing this, search engine users are likely to click on their results resulting in traffic to their website.

For further reading, check out:

• Our guide to SEO and SEM 
• Our blog post entitled What is SEO?

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