Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. Depending on the context, SEM can be an umbrella term for various means of marketing a website including search engine optimization (SEO), which "optimizes" website content to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages, or it may contrast with SEO, focusing on only paid components.SEM is an acronym for Search Engine Marketing. The main purpose of SEM is to attract attention, new customers, and inbound links to your website.SEM involves using different strategies, techniques, resources, networks, and applications to help a website achieve greater visibility online.
Think of SEM as "PR" for your business' website.There is some crossover between search engine optimization (SEO) and SEM, but the focus of SEM is geared towards attracting people more directly to your website (unlike SEO which largely targets search engine robots as a means of helping people find your website.)
SEM includes everything from submitting a site to directories, search engines, creating content that encourages organic links, and promoting the website through newsletters, to using social networks, videos, and article publication.
An SEM professional may be employed for an in-house work or by an agency. For instance, ecommerce companies like eBay, Google, Yahoo hire SEM professionals for their own products and services promotion. However, agencies like iProspect hire people to serve their clients for various SEM assignments. One may also work as a freelancer. Since every activity of an SEM job can be done online, lots of freelancing opportunities exist for independent SEM professionals. Find below the list of some of the key job roles in the SEM industry. Please note that depending upon the size of the organization, some of the mentioned roles may be combined into a single role.