If you have a little knowledge about the concepts of online marketing and the search engine functionality you can easily understand the importance of the search engine marketing techniques and their impact on the visibility of the sites. In this article we will discuss the various steps in search engine marketing and their impact on the online visibility of the sites. This will help us to develop the understanding about making a sound search marketing strategy as well as help us in finding the avenues of enhancing our online presence. It will also help the webmasters in understanding the nuances of the online promotions that are led by the search engine marketing companies across the world.

1. SEO: This is the oldest and the most basic step in search engine marketing that is considered by most of the webmasters as the primary step in making a site searchable. There are two main aspects of SEO that is on-page and off-page which are carried out on the website and the passive channels respectively. The techniques used for SEO have changed a lot in the due course of time but the basics are more or less the same that were used in the previous time. These techniques are quite useful in making the site searchable by the search engine crawlers. A well defined SEO strategy can help you in making a highly visible site easily.
2. SEM Strategy: This can be considered as an extension for the SEO part that is largely focusing on increasing the search visibility of the sites. In this strategy the major focus is on adding the site to the search engines by adopting the suggested methods. The submission to the search directories and the search engines for indexing the web pages can be highly useful in increasing the visibility of the site.
3. PAID ADVERTISING: The selection of the appropriate keywords and the perfect paid marketing campaigns can help the sites to appear on the first few pages that are again helpful in making a site visible to the prospective visitors. There are various models of paid advertising that are known as CPC, PPC and display ads. These methods are highly effective in bringing the new site into high visibility areas on the search engines. A finely tuned campaign can help you in increasing the visibility of the site manifold.
4. CONTENT MARKETING: This is a passive channel that is highly useful in building the credibility of the site. The content channels like blogs, guest posting and others help in bringing the site to higher level in search. This is a slow process but when carried in a consistent manner can be highly effective in generating the results as compared with the paid advertising.    
5. SMM: The companies offering search engine marketing in India and other parts of the world are actively using the social media marketing for enhancing the search visibility. It is one of the leading factors in making a site searchable.

These are the various steps in marketing that shall be used for online promotions and marketing.