Keywords still important to SEM

15:00 4th December 2008

Keywords are important to search engine marketing (SEM) as well as search engine optimisation (SEO), one expert has reminded firms.

Rhonda Abrams, president of entrepreneur-focused publisher, The Planning Shop, has told marketers that even though they can pay for their web address to be included in search engine results for certain terms, keywords can still make a difference.

Ms Abrams pointed out that keywords will boost the relevancy of a website in terms of a placement for a particular search term, as well as improving its general SEO.

She commented: "Even if you pay for placement, you still want to optimize your website - or certain pages of your website - for keywords.

"That's because search engines still want to make sure the results, even ads, that searchers see are relevant."

UK spending on pay-per-click advertising has been projected to reach more than £2 billion by the end of the year by eMarketer.