The Rise of Search Engine Marketing A key goal of marketing is to get a company’s name in front of the right people, meaning the potential customers. For many years, obvious ways to achieve this goal were to buy advertising in popular magazines, on radio, on television, on billboards, or in specialty publications that likely buyers would read. Some small businesses have even used techniques such as placing flyers or business cards in places that their target customers would likely spend time, such as on bulletin boards at a college campus. As the Internet has grown, however, a new phenomenon has emerged called search engine marketing, and for many businesses, its importance is equal to or greater than that of any other promotional approach. A basic definition of the term, which is often shortened to SEM, is marketing whose goal “is for your company's website to rank at the top of any potential customer's search results page” (Nadile, 2013). I think that as I graduate from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in marketing and pursue a career as a marketing specialist with a company or agency, this concept will be important. As I see it, a strong understanding of search engine marketing will be a huge professional asset. Keeping up with the constant changes in this dynamic niche would be highly challenging, but also stimulating and rewarding. Whenever consumers think of something they need, a first step is often to type a relevant phrase into an internet search engine, such as Google or Bing in the United States or Baidu in China. A search engine “copies webpages, stores information about the content on those webpages, and uses that information to respond to a search” (Nadile, 2013). In response to a search, the search engine will produce a list of relevant websites. If a company’s website appears near the top of the list of results, then consumers would tend to choose that company, both because of convenience and because they perceive the high ranking as an indication that the company is established and trustworthy. For example, if a consumer types “pet grooming” into Google, then the consumer would be likely to trust companies that appear within the first three to ten results (Nadile, 2013). Such firms would likely experience a substantial sales advantage compared to firms that have lower search rankings. If I can become highly skilled at search engine marketing, I can bring substantial value to employers and should be in high demand in the job market. Because of the potential benefits to sales, many companies covet high rankings in web searches for terms relevant to their work. Google holds two-thirds of search engine market share in the United States, and competition for the first few spots in a Google results page for a popular term or niche can be intense, and such positioning is not easy to achieve (Goldman, 2011). After all, there were approximately 785 million sites on the web as of November 2013, so standing out from the crowd would be quite an accomplishment (Netcraft, 2013). A wide range of techniques have been developed to increase a site’s chances of making a strong showing in search engine results. According to one definition, search engine marketing consists of “a combination of paid advertising, search engine-optimized website design, high-quality marketing copy and involvement in your industry's online community. And keywords. Lots and lots of keywords” (Nadile, 2013).
The techniques required in order to implement effective search engine marketing campaigns have become so specialized that countless firms have emerged to sell consulting and services in this area. These firms could present many job opportunities for ambitious graduates who master search engine marketing. The search engine marketing industry has become lucrative, and it continues to grow rapidly. By one estimate, the industry reached $23 billion in North America in 2012, which was a 19 percent increase from 2011 (Sempo.org). A key