What are the benefits of using SEM?

Money, Money and more Money.

Everyone runs and works for money. Once upon a time there was no remote for the television, no microwave, no elevators and no beers. As time goes, people create and then adapt themselves to new things. Your company by this time should be sueing an SEO..err..using an SEO to promote your online business. So you always have this question, how to improve my business online?

There are like billions of internet users, atleast millions of users for whatever business domain that you have or you are involved.

In this, How many percentage are visiting your website?
How many of them use your services?
What is your online sales? Is your site reachable by these potential customers through organic searching/ppc/ad links?, What is the strategy of your online compaign?

Customers everyday search for things like “latest electronic gadgets”, “wordpress themes”, “buy cycle”, “cheap and affordable cars”, “women clothing”, “wedding diamonds”, “you pick farms”, “internal medicine doctor”, “how adsense works” and million other things. Now the question that you have to ask yourself is, where is my website? what keywords would I like my website to be visible online, what are the competition that I have for my business and how an SEO/SEM Consultant will help me achieve that.

I am not kidding, you can make millions - atleast to start with a lots of thousands, if you already have a established business - your sales growth will go high - once you start marketing online properly!

Below is the real time example, many of you would have heard about RedCats USA group ( Chadwicks, La Redoute, Jessica London etc.,)

This is the snippet from the above red cats url:

€4.332 billion Sales in 2006
€225 million Operating Income in 2006
32.1% Sales made on line in 2006 vs. 4% in 2001
53.6% Sales originating outside France in 2006 (France: 46.4%; United States: 27.5%; UK: 11.1%; Scandinavia: 8.1%; Rest of the world: 6.9%)
31 million active customers
24 million visitors a month on all Redcats merchant sites combined

Now, note that in 5 years span the online sales went from 4% to 32.1%. If they can, don’t you think you can do the same? Also 24 million visitors a month - how many visitors your website is getting? I understand that online marketing alone is not sufficient and you need to establish a brand value and my question is how hard are you working on that? Are you there yet with your best?

Do you want another example, Blockbuster is closing few of its stores and trying to promote its online rental to the best possible. There are lots of stories of how corporate companies work to get an online presence and money out of it - I know how much they can spend or are spending already - with right SEO consultants/SEO company you can achieve the same being a growing small company.

I have to warn you here, it is not a month work or 3 month work, it is an ongoing effort - one to improve and second important thing is to retain what gained. You should be aware of SEO companies that promises 3 months work and all is done, reason is simple, if they promise you that your business will boom like anything, why cannot the same SEO company start their own and achieve using their SEO/SEM skills? Promoting is possible, business improving rapidly is possible - but long term (maybe commission basis) - short term ends the same way - short term.

Good luck,
Shiva