Search engine marketing is a form of internet marketing that maximizes your website's position in search engines like Google. Search engine optimization, also called SEO, helps attract new customers because of the increased visibility on search engine results pages. If your website is on the second page of Google for a search term, or even further back then that, it is likely that you are not getting as much traffic as you could if you were on the first page of Google. In fact, while the first result in Google for a particular search term averages a click-through rate of 36%, the third result in Google only averages a click-though rate of 9%. If your website isn't in one of the top spaces on Google, chances are the click-through rate is extremely low, meaning your business website won't be attracting much traffic.

Search engines results rely on several different calculations to make certain search results appear in the top section. Content and authority are usually the two main factors that help a website gain a higher visibility on any search engine result page, but a wide variety of factors go into ranking well on the search engines.

Your website's position in the search engines is influenced by the content that appears on web pages. A website that has excellent and quality content on the website will likely be higher on search engine results than other websites. Websites that are rich in valuable content, like blogs or sites with many articles on them, are usually ranked highly by Google and the other major search engines. This is because a website with a lot of written content usually ranks highly for a variety of keyword phrases that potential customers may search for.

Another important factor for ranking high in the search engines is the amount of sites that link back to yours. This determines the authority of a site. Links from other sites are like votes for your website's quality. If many other websites are linking to yours, it is an indicator to Google that your website is a worthwhile site to visit. Not all links are worth the same vote though. If you can get a link from a website that has a very high authority, like a university website or government website, those links are more important votes than a typical website. Ideally, your site should have links from a wide variety of sources and at least a few links from authority sites.

If you can't rank well in the natural search engine results due to the competitive nature of the keyword you're trying to rank for, some search engine marketers recommend using pay-per-click ads. With a pay-per-click program you can pay to have your website ranked on the first page of Google. You will only be charged if people click on your website in the search engine results. Although there is a cost associated with pay-per-click ads, it can be a worthwhile investment if your website relies on getting a lot of traffic. Chances are you can recoup any pay-per-click expense with the additional sales revenue you produce from having your site on the first page of Google.