SEM: Search Engine Marketing
SEM History and Search Engine Marketing Industry Market Share
2006
According to Wikipedia, During the calendar year of 2006, North American advertisers spent US$9.4 billion on search engine marketing, a 62% increase over the prior year and a 750% increase over calendar year of 2002. The largest SEM vendors were Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. As of 2006, SEM was growing much faster than traditional advertising and even other channels of online marketing.
According to Search Engine Watch, 2007 growth of SEM Revenues wildly exceeded expectations. “The SEMPO 2007 State of the Market Survey Results are in, and the data shows robust growth in the North American SEM industry year. Spending reached $12.2 billion in 2007, exceeding projections of $11.5 billion.”
By 2008
The definition of SEM or search engine marketing has changed significantly. Social Marketing, Social Bookmarking, and other Web 2.0 resources have evolved to become a strong percentage of the search engine optimization formula. Search engine rankings are defined by the value of the content associated to the link in question. Basically, the more sites and Internet users interested in a particular website, the higher value that website is to the search engines. For this reason, backlinking has also become a prominent portion of the search engine optimization algorithm. Without Social Marketing, SEM today would have similar value in proportion to market share, as SEM did in 2006. Today, the Internet advertising market value of Search Engine Marketing has increased significantly.
Social Marketing as it relates to SEM or Search Engine Marketing is referred to as Organic SEO. The reference refers to the fact that the placement of organic search is free in relation to ranking. The industry statistics we see on the value of SEM to the market may not include the fees related to Organic SEO, associated with SEO Consultants or SEM SEO Consulting Firms. However, according to the June, 2007 SEMPO surve, Organic SEO’s popularity was up to 89% in 2007, from 80% in 2005 and 76% in 2006. Agency respondents offering organic SEO rose to 91% in 2007, up from 80% in 2005 and 87% in 2006.
