Summary: Internet marketing is a great way for companies and web sites to get themselves out in the public eye and start gaining a customer base. Search engine marketing, or SEM as many know it, is one type of internet marketing that is among the most popular and successful.

Search engine marketing promotes websites and businesses by increasing how visible the various search engine results pages, also known as SERPs. There is more than one type of search engine marketing; each can work very well if properly done.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the most well known type of search engine marketing. With this method you improve the amount and quality of traffic that visits a web site from search engines with "natural", "organic" or "algorithmic" search results. Search engine optimization is also capable of targeting different kinds of searches, including image search, local search, and industry specific vertical search engines. This makes it a very appealing search engine marketing strategy. Search engine optimization includes the editing of the web sites content and coding and removing barriers to the indexing activities of the various search engines.

Another internet marketing method is paid placement or Pay per click, which is advertising that makes users money when someone clicks the advertisement or banner and visits the sponsors’ site. When it comes to search engine paid placement, advertisers usually bid on phrases or keywords relevant to their target market. Then if any users happen to type one of the keywords in an advertiser’s keyword list, or visit one of the web sites with relevant content, the advertisements can be displayed. The content web sites usually charge a set price for each click rather than using a bid system.

Some of the bigger and most popular pay per click providers are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter. These are all great methods and have large communities of users that are right there to help you out along your way. If you ask around, they can also point you in the direction of some other great options for both pay per click marketing and many more types of search engine and other internet marketing systems. One problem with pay per click is that there are people who commit click fraud in various ways, which cheats people out of their hard earned money. This is one of the reasons I would advise that you seek out someone with experience already, that might be willing to share some of their secrets to success with you.

Other than these two great options, there are a few other ways to make money online through either pay per click marketing, search engine optimization or some other form of internet marketing. Almost anyone can make some decent money with these methods, if they are willing to do the proper work and research, perhaps one of these is a good option for you.