Search Engine Marketing, or SEM is a set of Internet marketing strategies to increase the visibility of a website. Besides from website design, ecommerce (shopping cart) and programming, Damon Wong Design offers a full array of search engine marketing services, including:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Paid search ads
• Paid search advertising
• Pay Per Click (PPC) and Affiliate Programs
• CPC (cost-per-click)
• CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions)

SEM For Beginners

Google AdWords is by many measures the most popular paid search platform used by search marketers, followed by Bing Ads, which also serves a significant portion of ads on Yahoo.

Beyond that, there are a number of "2nd tier PPC platforms" as well as PPC advertising options on the major social networks.

In addition to covering general paid search trends, you can find the most recent news about SEM and helpful tips to get started with PPC ads on the major search marketing platforms below:

• Google: AdWords
• Bing Ads
• Yahoo: Search Ads

Google: AdWords Bing Ads Yahoo: Search Ads Each platform offers its own getting started guides and helpful tutorials.

Search Engine Marketing Benefits:

• Better Ranking On Search Engine (Google)
• Increased Traffic
• Increased Sales
• More Return on Investment
• Increased Competitive Advantage
• More Visibility and More Conversions
• Blogs and Online Forums

Blogs and forums are an excellent way to promote your company, product or service. Damon Wong Design provides consulting services on design and promotion of business blogs.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Optimize your web site for the search engines:

• Meta tags
• Title tags
• Description tags
• Keyword tags
• H1 tags
• Keyword page creation
• Trending keywords
• Google Analytics for tracking
• Page optimization for important keywords
• Check visitor traffic for trends

Pay Per Click

Pay-per-click marketing is a way of using search engine advertising to generate clicks to your website, rather than "earning" those clicks organically. You know those sponsored ads you often see at the top of Google's search results page, marked with a yellow label? That's pay-per-click advertising:

• Add PPC Keywords: Expand the reach of your pay-per-click campaigns by adding keywords that are relevant to your business
• Add Negative Keywords: Add non-converting terms as negative keywords to improve campaign relevancy and reduce wasted spend
• Split Ad Groups: Improve click-through rate (CTR) and Quality Score by splitting up your ad groups into smaller, more relevant ad groups, which help you create more targeted ad text and landing pages. Review Costly PPC Keywords: Review expensive, under-performing keywords and shut them off if necessary
• Refine Landing Pages: Modify the content and calls-to-action (CTAs) of your landing pages to align with individual search queries in order to boost conversion rates. Don't send all your traffic to the same page.