SEM stands for “search engine marketing’

Search engine marketing covers a more broad topic than the better known acronym SEO (search engine optimization).

While search engine optimization focuses on moving your site’s pages to a higher position on the search engine’s results pages, SEM is more ‘holistic’ in nature.

SEM encompasses making sure your result shows up as an attractive candidate that someone wants to click on in the search engine results page. After all, what does it matter if you rank at the top of the search engine results if no one clicks on your listing?

SEM also broadly encompasses the use of cost effectly utilizing search engine paid advertising, commonly known as google adwords, or yahoo’s or microsoft’s paid advertising programs (pay per click (PPC) and the engines’ programs which charge by the impression for your advertisement)