SearchEngineWatch is reporting today that Office Live is to get a SEM offering to the services in its Office Live Small Business market. So what is SEM? It's Search Engine Marketing and basically it means getting your website higher up the search ranks in a search engine's results. The service will be in conjunction with The Search Agency.

"The needs of entrepreneurs in this space are very diverse. Some are do-it-yourself oriented, and want to learn to do everything, while others want to completely offload certain aspects of their business to vendors," said Louise Rasho, senior manager of marketing communications for Microsoft Office Live Small Business. "Then there are the folks in the middle, who need consultative help getting started, so they can take over from there."

This move adds to the services Microsoft already provide in the form of the adManager service and a service they offer to website pros, so Microsoft certainly seems to be making a big push to help those who are using the Office Live service to promote themselves and get their site and/or business noticed by the masses.

SL