Search engine marketing, or SEM for short, is an area of online marketing and is divided into the sectors of search engine optimization (SEO for short) and search engine advertising (also SEA). In simple terms, this includes all measures that improve the position of a company’s website in search engine results. The aim is to make the company “visible” in search engine queries, i.e. to position it on the first search engine results pages. Various measures are necessary to achieve this.
In search engine optimization, a distinction can be made between the OnPage optimization and OffPage optimization sectors. Examples of OnPage optimization are technical aspects, such as meta elements or URL structures, the creation of landing pages and thematically suitable content or the optimization of the respective content through keywords, links and structuring.
OffPage optimization includes, among other things, link building in cooperation with various link partners by placing guest articles or similar or linking to social media platforms to spread the content and provide further links.
In addition, the site operators have the opportunity to better position their website through advertising – through so-called search engine advertising. Because whoever places such an advertisement can expect to be ranked higher in search queries and thus even to be displayed in the first place. Google has reserved a special place for this: Above the organic search results or in the right sidebar of the searches. The disadvantage: The respective website is also marked as advertising.
This ensures that the user does not feel deceived and thus provides more transparency.
But this is another reason why the topic of search engine marketing is always the subject of controversial debate. Because complete transparency can never be guaranteed and can therefore also be manipulated in many ways. The boundaries between legitimate and manipulative measures are often blurred.
