Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are NOT the same thing. The distinction is important to note when you are speaking with your web developer (which we hope is Accolade Group! OK, that’s a shameless plug.)
Just as we have a large group, for example, ANIMALS; and, then we have smaller groups, for example, CATS, DOGS, MICE.
We all know that Animals and Cats are not the same thing. This is the difference between Search Engine Marketing, SEM, and Search Engine Optimization, SEO. SEO is a part of SEM – but, it is not the entirety of SEM.
Also included in SEM is Social Media Marketing (SMM).
Let’s start with the smaller group, individual animals. No, wait, I mean SEO.
SEO is all about making changes to your website – and you have control of that, right? So, you can add a description for each page; keywords for each page; and a lot of other things.
When you talk about Search Engine Marketing, you are usually talking about the PAID aspect of marketing. That is, Pay Per Click. In Google, Pay Per Click (PPC) means AdWords.
Yes, you can do things to your website to increase the number of visitors; but, you don’t have much control over whether someone posts a link to your website on their Facebook page.
Now, if you take out an ad on Facebook and link to your website, you will pay for that. The same is true on other social media platforms.
For the sake of convenience, most people think of Search Engine Marketing as some form of paid advertising; but, Search Engine Optimization is not paid advertising.
Search Engine Marketing – Some Elements
When we talk about Search Engine Marketing, we will be discussing topics such as:
- Web Analytics:
- this is normally Google Analytics and with Analytics we can see how many people are visiting the website, how long they are there, and what they do. Google Analytics plays a part in both SEM, SEO, SMM.
- Conversion Optimization:
- We want visitors to our website to do something. Maybe we want them to buy something, sign up for a newsletter, make a comment. If they actually do something such as make a purchase, we say they have been “converted.” This is the goal of Search Engine Marketing.
- Google Analytics will tell us the path they took toward that conversion; and, where they dropped out if they didn’t convert.
- Our task is to then examine the website and try to make modifications to the website which will lead them to completing a “conversion”.
Social Media Marketing:- This is about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and any of the other platforms that people follow. We can make a post to any of those platforms and say something about our website and provide a link to our website.
- We hope that people on the Social Media platform will like what we say and will re-post our link somewhere else. This, of course, is something over which we have no control – this is a reason it’s part of SEM and not SEO .
- Our only control is to be on that particular social media platform and to make regular posts and to hope that they will be re-posted by whomever sees them.
- Email Marketing:
- This is one of the best and least expensive ways to promote our website. As the name Email Marketing implies, the website owner prepares an email and sends it to one person or to many people. The purpose of the email is to convince the recipient to do something when they receive the email.
- Sorry, but just deleting the email is not what we have in mind. What we want to convince the recipient to do is to click a link to our website, go to the website and make a purchase of something we have promoted in the email.
- Affiliate Marketing:
- An interesting aspect of Search Engine Marketing is to discover a website that is trying to promote itself. Its own website, not our website, to be clear.
- The other website will provide us with a link to their website. We take that link and put it on our website and if a visitor to our website clicks the link, we get paid.
- For us, Affiliate Marketing is providing a link that others will put on their website. When a visitor to their website clicks the link, they will come to our website. It is then our responsibility to pay the owner of the other website since they put our link on their website and someone click it, came to our website and did something.
- We need to decide if we pay if someone merely clicks a link; or, after clicking, they convert by signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase. All this should be decided before you offer links that other websites can use.
- Lead Generation:
- A more time consuming aspect of Search Engine Marketing is Lead Generation. Lead Generation means that we do something that brings people to our website.
- There are a number of things that we can do to get leads. We may write a blog for another website and mention our website in the blog article. We could even send articles to a newspaper and include a link to our website. You are limited in Lead Generation only by your creative imagination.
- Marketing for Mobile Devices:
- Since more and more people are using a mobile phone or some device such as a tablet to surf the Internet, we want to make our website look nice on their whatever device they are using.
- How do we know if people are using a mobile phone or desktop to come to our website? Easy, we look at Google Analytics which will tell us the numbers for all devices that people use.
- Internet Marketing Strategy:
- Internet Marketing Strategy is the most important part of Search Engine Marketing. Our Internet Marketing Strategy is what tells us which of the previous segments of Search Engine Marketing we should use.
- Should we use email marketing and affiliate marketing? Should we have a presence on social media; and, if so, which platforms are good for us to use and which aren’t.
