Driving website traffic to your business is all about using the right search engine strategies.

Business owners considering an investment in search engine marketing (SEM) can often feel like they’re drowning in a sea of marketing acronyms and lingo.

It comes down to making sure that your business is at the top of the list when your customers use Google, Yahoo!, Bing or one of the many other search engines out there. It’s that simple.

There are two key aspects to SEM. First, by investing in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), you’re ensuring that your website ranks as highly as possible in the ‘natural’ rankings, that is, the unpaid section of the search engine. Second, by investing in search advertising, such as Google Adwords or one of the other search advertising providers, you’re effectively bidding on words you think are relevant to your business. The most relevant and highest bidder gets the top spot in the paid section, meaning more hits to your site.

“The expression ‘Google it’ is indicative of how search engines help people make decisions today,” says Ewan Watt, CEO and founder of search engine marketing company, ROI.com.au. “Irrespective of your business type or size, it’s critical to make sure that you’re positively ranked on search engines.”

According to Watt, search advertising programs are a great way for businesses to quickly increase website traffic.

“Once you know the most popular search terms for your organisation via your search advertising, you should then engage a specialist SEO business to optimise your website so that you rank in the top five natural search results of Google, Yahoo! & Bing,” he says.

Paid search advertising can cost as little or as much as you want to spend. For SEO, a reasonable starting cost is around $1,500, with minimum outgoings of $250 per month, but this will vary depending on the ‘popularity’ of your business category.

For businesses considering an investment in SEM, Watt offers the following tips:

• Update your website every week – search engines often reward sites that continually provide fresh and relevant content.
• Think traffic and conversion – commit resources and time to turning a higher number of clicks into customers.
• Engage SEO specialists – treat your SEO as a serious marketing investment.

You should be able to clearly measure the success of your efforts in SEM – more traffic to your website and improved sales conversions.