As chapter 20 explains, the answer to my question in the title, is YES! Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is here to stay. Online marketing and pay-per-click advertising is on the rise and since it’s first appearance in 1998 we are finally starting to track it’s success.

The book talks about the collaboration between SEO and SEM and what an unstoppable pair they make. Unfortunately for my personal website, I have not dived into SEM and tried pay-per-click or facebook advertising yet. The company I work for though, has dabbled with paying for facebook ads and from my knowledge you can target people (who like a certain page but not yours yet) or location of people (maybe where an Alumni Chapter is and we’re promoting an event).

The great thing about SEM is you can see exactly how many people are clicking on your ads (because you’re getting charged for each click). The down side to SEM it is considered “paid listing”. You are paying to be placed in a certain spot. Organic listing based solely of SEO is a little more trusting to the audience as no company can buy or manipulate that list you search engine like you can with SEM. I know the only way to get to the top of the list is a good website and lots of traffic to that page.

While researching more about SEM and pay-per-click advertising, I came across a blog at forbes.com entitled:  Improved Paid Search Ads Spurring Growth in E-Commerce by Eric Savitz.  This article states that according to the Internet Advertising Bureau, “e-commerce is expected to jump to $248.7 billion in 2014 from $172.9 billion in 2010. Paid search now represents 47% of the Web ad market, followed by display ads, including banners and digital video, at 36%, and classifieds 11%.”

This reenforces what Safko is saying on how important SEO and SEM is. If a business has a strong appearance on the web, they need to be considering spending time and money on SEM. It’s worth the payoff and after all it is the way of the future.