Conducting business on the web, you need to be visible organically and through advertised links. So SEO and SEM work very well together to provide an online marketing campaign. That is not to say that these are your only choices. There are a number of other online strategies that can work for your business and compliment SEO and SEM campaigns. Things like, social media, blogging and email.
SEM (also known as Pay Per Click or Google Adwords) is when search engines allow marketers to ‘sponsor links’. As the marketer, you pay only when your ad is clicked, allowing you to set budgets. Ads in a successful SEM campaign will be shown to consumers who are specifically looking for your products and services, so usually have a higher conversion rate. It is important to remember that the ad must direct the consumer to a call to action or page that has been designed to convert this enquiry to a sale. This strategy can have a quicker return on your investment.
With any marketing campaign, it essential that you monitor what is happening, so you can make amendments as necessary. Google Analytics and Google Webmasters Tools are both good resources. These back end tools analyse the performance of a website in the search engines. It can help you measure sales and conversions, insights on how visitors are using your site, how they arrived, key words used etc, allowing you to create a better experience.