What Is Search Engine Marketing?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the process of purchasing ads on search engines, such as Google AdWords and Bing Ads, to help achieve specific KPIs. Some common KPIs for SEM campaigns include increasing awareness of a site or product, driving conversions and more. Other common terms for SEM are pay-per-click advertising or paid search.

What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of driving traffic to a website via organic (nonpaid) search in search engines such as Google and Bing. SEO involves optimizing website content and code to increase the ranking for specific search queries, which leads to more organic traffic to the site.

The Goal

The goal of SEM and SEO is to target, attract and drive consumer action.

We go beyond keyword research to understand searcher intent; then we connect intent with brand offerings. Pace believes that developing and optimizing content and ad performance is crucial to increasing visibility and user engagement, program ROI, and supporting the overall customer journey.

Our Strategic, End-to-End Process

A search state of mind is woven into our content creation workflow. We employ an integrated development process designed to deliver optimized content with the user in mind. In order to create successful SEM and SEO campaigns, we use a three-phase process that provides a continuous cycle of test and learn opportunities, which help us to be nimble and always focus on optimization.

Identify the Needs

  • How does content perform for the audience most often neglected – the search engines?
  • Where do the gaps exist amongst competitors?
  • How strong is our site’s domain authority?
  • What are the keywords currently being leveraged, how do they perform and what additional phrases should we be targeting?

Do the Work

  • Keyword research
  • Site crawls and indexation reviews
  • Competitive analysis
  • Backlink analysis
  • Page sculpting

Present and Deliver

  • SEM and SEO audits
  • Content pathing docs
  • Keyword ranking reports
  • Google Search Console reports for SERP impressions and CTR
  • Migrations and redirection recommendation

SEM and SEO Capabilities

SEM

  • Keyword research
  • Customized ad groups
  • Negative keyword lists

Technical SEO

  • Meta descriptions, title tags, URLs
  • Link building
  • On-page optimizations
  • Site audits

Creative

  • Keyword-rich content
  • Optimized images and video
  • Display ads
  • Text ads

Governance

  • SEM and SEO audits
  • A/B testing
  • Tracking documents
  • Measurement frameworks and custom reporting

Social

  • Keyword placement and optimization in profiles
  • Pages and links to client sites
  • Hashtag research

Enterprise

  • Corporate training  
  • Workshops

Work with Us