To straighten out these expectations let's begin with a couple definitions.
Search Engine Marketing: SEM relates to the purchase of AdWords (or other online marketing media like banner ads). Search engine marketing is very controllable. You decide what you want to spend, which words or phrases you want to purchase, and exactly which page you want your ad to link to.
Search Engine Optimization: SEO relates to the examination of a website to find any technical barriers that might be preventing a search engine from accessing a website's content, and then identifying the most relevant site content and improving significant elements (primarily the page's browser title) in order to help the search engine index the content most effectively.
Failure and disappointment follow when companies hire a search engine service to apply SEM expectations to SEO, or vice versa.
If you want search engine traffic directed to your site's homepage when a specific phrase is used, all you have to do is sign up for an AdWords account (or a Sponsored Search account with Yahoo!) and bid on keywords and key phrases. If you bid enough you can achieve your goal. It's actually very easy, and very controllable. You decide how much you want to spend. You define exactly which keywords and phrases you want to be listed under. You define the text of your link and exactly which page you want the ad to link to. You can set up site trackers that record and measure the return on investment of your ads. Google has a free analytics system (what used to be Urchin 6 - see June 2005 newsletter) which allows you to establish goals, track effectiveness and monitor all manner of marketing data from your AdWord links.
But, as consumers we'd rather not pay for placement if we can get listed in organic results for free. Besides, we all know that the sponsored links are paid for and so we don't trust sponsored links as much as we do natural ones. Statistics bear this out. Natural links are clicked on seven times more frequently than sponsored ads.
The problem is that we cannot control organic results. We cannot do anything that will guarantee a particular site's inclusion in organic search results. We certainly cannot control which phrases a search engine will associate with our site, and even if we have success getting a site into a search engine, and we achieve good placement on a given phrase, we cannot control which page in our site that the search engine will link to in its results.
ajmalseotips.blogspot.com
Search Engine Marketing: SEM relates to the purchase of AdWords (or other online marketing media like banner ads). Search engine marketing is very controllable. You decide what you want to spend, which words or phrases you want to purchase, and exactly which page you want your ad to link to.
Search Engine Optimization: SEO relates to the examination of a website to find any technical barriers that might be preventing a search engine from accessing a website's content, and then identifying the most relevant site content and improving significant elements (primarily the page's browser title) in order to help the search engine index the content most effectively.
Failure and disappointment follow when companies hire a search engine service to apply SEM expectations to SEO, or vice versa.
Appropriate SEM Goals
If you want search engine traffic directed to your site's homepage when a specific phrase is used, all you have to do is sign up for an AdWords account (or a Sponsored Search account with Yahoo!) and bid on keywords and key phrases. If you bid enough you can achieve your goal. It's actually very easy, and very controllable. You decide how much you want to spend. You define exactly which keywords and phrases you want to be listed under. You define the text of your link and exactly which page you want the ad to link to. You can set up site trackers that record and measure the return on investment of your ads. Google has a free analytics system (what used to be Urchin 6 - see June 2005 newsletter) which allows you to establish goals, track effectiveness and monitor all manner of marketing data from your AdWord links.
If We Had Our Druthers
But, as consumers we'd rather not pay for placement if we can get listed in organic results for free. Besides, we all know that the sponsored links are paid for and so we don't trust sponsored links as much as we do natural ones. Statistics bear this out. Natural links are clicked on seven times more frequently than sponsored ads.
The problem is that we cannot control organic results. We cannot do anything that will guarantee a particular site's inclusion in organic search results. We certainly cannot control which phrases a search engine will associate with our site, and even if we have success getting a site into a search engine, and we achieve good placement on a given phrase, we cannot control which page in our site that the search engine will link to in its results.
ajmalseotips.blogspot.com
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