Guest Teacher on Thursday, December 7

Yesterday, David, the instructor from the other Marketing 437 section, came back into our classroom to teach us all about Search Engine Marketing (SEM). It was a very interesting topic and I learned a great deal from him. One of the main things I learned from David’s lecture was that when posting a website onto the Internet, it is a good quality to have a website that is really searchable, by including keywords that are relevant to the target users/readers. Strong visibility as well as great Portal Presence on the Internet can increase traffic to a website. Visibility on the Internet can be purchased through ads, sponsorships, search engine submissions and search engine rankings. Sites in the top 10 results on search engines have a better chance of being noticed, so different sites try different techniques in order to make that top ten. To measure the Visibility of websites on search engines such as Google, SEM uses techniques such as P4P, standing for Pay for Performance which is also known as CPC, standing for, Cost per click. Another fact that I found interesting about SEM is that marketers/people who use SEM are constantly updating their websites. As technology evolves, so does SEM, so marketers and people have to constantly update their websites to make sure they are updated with the latest technology on the web. I also learned many others things about SEM from David’s lecture, including:

Some reasons Internet users worldwide use search engines are for:

• Research
• Entertainment
• Business
• News
• Banking
• Dictionary
• Comparison shopping
• Shopping / purchases

I know I use the Internet for all of these things. Right now, since I am a dedicated student, I mostly use the internet for research and news. I tend to shop online for things I cannot find or get in stores.

In order to be successful when using SEM marketers must:

1) Establish site objectives

2) Figure out strategic goals

3) Identify an audience and market

4) Know the competition and what they're doing

5) Offer a lot of relevant/useful information

6) Include a lot of creative content. Content should also be up to par with other websites:

a) type, tone, style, architecture, navigation, graphic design, and usability should be crafted so as the website is easy to look at and use.

b) Visibility - search engine optimization

c) Marketing - site promomotion, branding, testimonials

d) Site maintenance

e) Guarantees

f) Links

g) Privacy statement