SEO vs SEM

SEO vs SEM

SEO vs SEM

By most people's standards, the internet is still very young. New technologies and developments in existing technologies are appearing at an extraordinary rate. As technologies change, so does the terminology used to describe them.

I worked for three years as a webmaster. Ask a dozen people to define that term, and you'll get a lot of different answers. A webmaster may be the leader of a large team, including developers, writers, marketers, designers, usability experts, technical support people, and yes, search engine optimizers. Or s/he may perform all or some of those duties alone.

The same is true for search engine optimization. For many people, the term is a new one, and they have no idea what it is an SEO does. To others, SEO is synonymous with SEM -- search engine marketing. In my opinion, there is a big difference between the two.

Search Engine Marketing

I see SEM as a rather broad term. It's everything that can be done to utilize the technology of search engines with the goal of promoting a web site and increasing its traffic, its "stickiness," and, in the case of sites that promote a business (or are a business), increase profits. SEO, therefore, would be a subset of SEM.

Aspects of search engine marketing which I would consider to be outside the realm of search engine optimization include the following:

Paid Inclusion

This is simply the practice of paying a search engine or a directory to add a site to its database immediately, rather than setting up that site so that it will be found by the search engine spiders on its own. In the case of some search engines and directories, paid inclusion is the only way to get listed. For others, it's presented as an option. If you're willing to pay, your site will be listed sooner. It's also a useful practice if you wish to make frequent changes to your content, because your site will be spidered more often and you will be able to test how changes affect your ranking.

Traditional Ads

This involves placing paid advertising on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Normally, these ads appear based on the keywords entered into the search engines, and one is charged based on the number of impressions, i.e. appearances, of the ad. In other words, you pay whether the ad sends anyone to your web site or not.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC ads are simple enough to look at. They're text-only. PPC ad campaigns are completely controlled by the advertiser. You decide which keywords should bring up your ads, you write the copy, and you decide how much you want to pay. And, as the name indicates, you only pay for an ad when someone clicks it and is brought to your site. There are two main networks of PPC ads, run by Google and Overture, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages, but in both cases, one should be prepared to spend a great deal of time (and money) monitoring and adjusting such a campaign.

The Advantages of These Practices

In contrast to pure SEO, these SEM practices offer the advantage of immediacy. If you need to increase your traffic and your visibility right away, and you don't have a problem with spending a lot of money, this may be the way to go.

The Disadvantages

You knew this was coming, didn't you? Think about it this way: you've spent your time and money to bring people to your web site. What will they see when they get there? You've convinced them, at least for the moment, that your site is worth visiting, so they're expecting to find exactly the information they were seeking. Is it easy to find? Is it there at all? You only have a few seconds to convince them that your site can deliver what they want. Will your visitors, failing to find what they're looking for, click their browser's back button and try another site?

Your site has to be ready for your visitors. It needs to be written, structured, and coded in such a way that the information is clearly laid out and easy to find. If it isn't, your site will either be immediately forgotten by visitors, or worse, it will be remembered as one that fails to deliver.

SEO First

No SEM campaign is complete without SEO. Moreover, since the purpose of SEO is to make the site better for both search engines and users, you may find that it will suffice on its own. In any case, the advantages of SEO over the other aspects of SEM make it clear that, even if you are going to spend additional money on advertising and paid placement, SEO must be your first step in promoting your site.

Source : raisemyrank.com

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5 Guidelines For Reaching #1 in Google Rankings

 

Written by: Stoney deGeyter

How do you get top search engine rankings?That’s what everybody really wants to know, right? It’s amazing how often that question is posed and, to this day, nobody has been able (or willing!) to provide a definitive answer. When asked, SEOs dance all around it, never quite giving you something to grasp on to.


You hear answers like, “There is no magic formula,” “The search engines look at a lot of different factors” and “The search results are different for everyone.” None of these answers provide much comfort — or value — to the average business owner or newbie web marketer who’s looking to push their site to the top.

It’s time someone stepped up and truly answered the unanswerable question. Like a magician who reveals his tricks, I’m going to put myself up for ridicule, open hostility and possibly even excommunication from the “club.”

However, I can be silent no longer. There is a formula to #1 rankings and I will now reveal it to the world!

1. Education

If you want to get #1 rankings on Google, then you have to start with a solid base of education. More and more colleges are offering courses on online marketing, but there is no better education than getting down in the trenches. The most up-to-date information you’ll find regarding web marketing strategies can be found online.


Be careful though. You can’t believe everything you read. You’ll have to learn which sources and individuals you can trust to provide the most accurate information. But even still, most everything you see online is opinion-based. It’s an educated opinion, but still an opinion.


There are a lot of people out there publishing their tests of algorithms. You can learn from those, but the best education is your own testing. Learn by doing. Start with optimization best practices and then begin to branch out with your own theories. Test them and see what does and doesn’t work.

Most importantly, never stop educating yourself. Web marketing changes rapidly, and if you don’t continue to read, share and politely argue thoughts and ideas, you’ll find yourself stuck doing yesterday’s web marketing tactics for tomorrows algorithms. Keep current. Don’t stop learning, ever.

2. Hard Work

Your education only pays off with old fashioned hard work. There are very few sites that we market that don’t have a good deal of issues that need to be worked through and fixed. Whether it’s keyword research, fixing site architectural issues, or developing an on-going promotion plan, there is a lot of time, energy and effort that goes into each web marketing campaign.


There are a lot of quick fixes on websites, but each one is only part of the solution. I love seeing results quickly, but the real results generally come with time invested in the campaign. The work you do marketing a site may change — today it’s architecture, tomorrow optimization, the next day social promotion — but the hard work never ceases.

3. Build Authority

Google doesn’t want to rank sites because you were able to manipulate the algorithm. They want to rank sites that have already proven that they deserve to be there. And what makes you worthy? You have to have a site that people love.


That means you need to build authority into your site. Authority moves you closer to the top for your keywords because Google sees that you have created a site that people have already demonstrated they love.


Authority is created in many ways. It starts with having content that demonstrates that you know what you’re talking about. If you’ve proven your knowledge, you then have to provide it in a way that your visitors enjoy. Finally, you have to engage with your audience, answering their questions, pointing them to other resources, and simply making them feel valued.

Doing these things on a regular and consistent basis will earn you authority points that will ultimately translate into better rankings. It’s simply all about delivering what your audience wants.

4. Invest More Than The Other Guy

Moving past all the other sites that currently hold top search engine rankings for your keywords is, ultimately, a matter of investment. I’m not just talking money here. I’m talking about time, skill, know-how and money. Money only works if you’re paying someone else to do all your web marketing. And that’s fine. But it still comes down to time; theirs instead of yours.


So let’s wrap all that into a single word: invest. How much are you investing in your web marketing campaign? If your competitors are investing more, you’re going to lose. If that other site you’re trying to overtake in the search results is doing a better job investing in social media, you’re going to fail. If they are investing more in building a better web site, you’re going to fail. If they are investing more in customer outreach, you’re going to fail.


See the pattern here? You are simply unlikely to outperform anyone who is investing more than you. So that means you have to go one better. And depending on how much of a lead they have, you might need to do more than one better, maybe five or ten better, just to catch up.

5. Patience

Everything in web marketing takes time. If you’re smart, you’ll go after some quick wins so you can start seeing some benefit of the work going into your campaign. But those quick wins are small victories compared to the big victories that come with time.

It takes time to fix a site’s architecture. It takes time to research, organize, select and optimize for keywords. It takes time to build up a strong social presence. So give yourself time to succeed. Don’t expect to be at the top overnight.

So there it is, the five unbeatable tactics that get you to #1. Do these five things and you will get the success you want. If you don’t get to #1 after doing these five things, it just means you haven’t done them right. Don’t expect to earn rankings you truly don’t deserve. How do you know if you do deserve to be ranked #1? You’re already there!

Source: seoarticles.com

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