In a previous post, I blogged about search engine optimization (SEO) and the role it plays toward acquiring organic (non-paid) traffic for our customer’s web sites.  Now I’d like to turn attention to the paid side, search engine marketing (SEM), which in its simplest form is focused on paid placement in search results.

While effective search engine optimization is about code, content and community, successful search engine marketing is all about proficiency, placement and performance.

Market Leader has assembled a team of online advertising experts whose sole purpose is to source qualified lead traffic for our real estate customers’ web sites.  This team brings to their work a high degree of proficiency, based on the collective experience of this talented group combined with in-house best practices amassed during the ten years Market Leader has been in this space.  This proficiency is valuable due in our efforts with geographic/demographic targeting, channel mix, bid optimization, and other strategies that help maximize a customer’s return on ad spend.

Our ad experts work to ensure that our customers receive the most cost-effective placement. This entails bidding for a keyword—though an advertiser cannot always out-bid its competitors for a top placement. The search engines also rate a website with a “quality score,” which affects its placement among all paid positions. Market Leader websites are designed to ensure high quality ratings from search engines—not to mention those visiting and using our sites.

Understanding how to use tools such as Google AdWords enable our team to maintain high levels of performance for the ads they place.  With this and other online technologies, our Ad team ensures each customer is getting the most from their advertising dollar.   The challenge many real estate professionals face is balancing the time and attention required to advertise their business online with other mission critical tasks associated with assisting active clients.  By letting Market Leader be responsible for driving traffic to their site, our customers can focus on what they do best, getting clients to close on their home purchase.

In future posts I look forward to providing more details about the synergy between SEO and SEM, as well as the importance of the website domain.

Thad Westhusing is Vice President of Product and Network Development at Market Leader.  In this role, Thad oversees all of Market Leader’s online services for real estate professionals, including site design and development.