Search Engine Marketing is the term used to describe promotion and advertising that generates traffic from Search Engines. Marketing websites through Search Engines allows qualified traffic to be generated, this is because people have already typed a criteria into the Search Engine. Their criteria entered is queried against the Search Engines Database and relevant websites will be displayed.

The Wikipeida definition of Marketing is:

“Marketing is an ongoing process of planning and executing the marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion often referred to as the 4 Ps) for products, services or ideas to create exchange between individuals and organizations.”

Interestingly, Wikipedia references the the four new P’s that are now more common due to technology making such a strong impact. These new P’s are:

• Personalization: Where people are now receiving marketing messages that are specifically targeted to their needs.
• Participation: When people who use the brand are participating with a real experience that is associated with the brand.
• Peer-to-Peer: Consumers are now able to interact with other consumers, discussing and recommending the brands that they trust and have used. Messages created by the big brands may not be as strong as they used to be, the Internet allows a open platform for the consumer message to come through.
• Predictive modeling: Predicting the outcomes of consumers from the actions that are taken with marketing activity’s.

The main Search Engine Marketing techniques used are Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).