Want a massive amount of web traffic coming to your website each day? One of the best ways to generate such traffic is via search engine marketing. Search engine marketing, also known as "SEM" or simply search marketing is about attracting people who search on particular words ("keywords") and phrases ("keyphrases") in the search engines to visit your website. Don't worry - it's not as scary as it might sound!

For most Internet users it's virtually second nature to use a search engine to look for information, products or services. As expected, when they search on a particular word or combinations of words, the search engines come up with a host of results. Each result represents a website that supposedly has the information, products or services the Internet user looking for. They can click on the link and ta-da! the website does or does not give them what they want.

In most cases, running an effective search engine marketing effort means having your listing appear at the top of the organic results, which appear on the left-hand side of the pages of the major search engines. However, it may be just as beneficial to have your ad appear in the first few listings in the paid results too. These appear on the right hand side of the pages of the major search engines. At the very least you want to be on the first page of results. And that, in a nutshell, is one of the major aims of search engine marketing.

The two main strands of search marketing are search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search. Search engine optimization is about optimizing your website (i.e. each page on the site) - known as "on-page optimization" - as well as undertaking a range of "off-page" activities designed to achieve a high ranking in the SERPs. Getting a high ranking in the SERPs of a given search engine is a function of how that search engine's mathematical algorithm (i.e. for determining rankings) works. Often this takes a degree of study, trial and error, and hard work.

Alternatively, to achieve a high place in the paid search results, it's largely a matter of how much you're willing to pay. Depending on the search engine, you can pay per click - known literally as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising - or pay based on the number of impressions or views the ad receives. Having said that, the priority of your placing may also be impacted by how effective your ad is, based on the number of clicks it receives or click through rate (CTR). Google, in particular, takes the CTR into account, as well as the bid price per click, when determining the order of the paid results.

It can be a good idea to dip your toe into search marketing by starting with paid advertising - particularly PPC. Not only can you begin promoting your offer to your target market without delay, but you can also test keywords. You might decide that particularly high performing keywords should be incorporated into your webpages for SEO purposes.

Some Internet marketers believe SEM is difficult or "technical". But, in reality, becoming adept at SEM is largely a matter of learning the various strategies, testing different approaches, and putting in some work. The reward - lots of traffic and customers - certainly justifies the effort!