Posts Tagged ‘search marketing’
SEM And SEO In Website Design
Very few people consider SEM, Search Engine Marketing, or SEO, Search Engine Optimization, when entering a query in a search engine. These two tools are what allow the search engine to generate the results that show on the corresponding page. While the results are what an individual is generally looking for, SEM and SEO are also responsible for the adverstisements and popups that appear.
SEO and SEM are just abbreviations for strategies and techniques used by people to give their sites high visibility on the web. While they’re particularly important for people selling products and services, SEO and SEM are useful for any site. Without SEO and SEM, people don’t know how to find you, or why they should find you in the first place, and so your web site gathers dust.
Now, to make it even more complex, although the functions of SEM & SEO seem different, they are more effective when used together. Since the main function of SEM is to gain more exposure for a web-site, the more common means for attraction are online commercials, blogs, web articles, partner & sponsored web-sites, & anything that can catch the eye of the net user. SEM also makes use of PPC (pay-per-click) & paid inclusion to further push a website?s visibility. Lastly, it is also an important process in SEM to submit the name & URL of a web-site to different search engines & web directories if only to inform them of the website?s existence. All this is carried out to ensure the popularity of a web-site.
While they seem to perform the same task in different ways, the most effective strategy is to use both SEM and SEO together. Some common means of using SEM to increase exposure of a website is through online advertisements, blogs, internet articles, partner and sponsored websites, and PPD (Pay-Per-Click) advertisements. It is also important when using SEM to remember to submit the name and URL of the website to each different search engine enabling them to know of the websites existence.
While the SEM is indeed increasing exposure through the advertising, it is also important to remember that the internet user was using a search engine to find information. Therefore, it would also be strategic to use SEO to increase the ranking of the website on the SERPS. In order to do this the creator must constantly be developing and optimizing the website in order for the search engines spiders and web-crawlers to better determine the website’s relevance ot the query. Optimization of the website involves constant restructuring by editing fundamental aspects of the website such as the html code, meta tags, changing content, and organizing the site map. When used in this manner, SEO helps the user to find the answer to their query and also increases the exposure of the website through increasing its ranking.
So how does SEO come together with SEM? Well, despite having all the commercials provided by SEM, it is truly the SEO that allows the net user to easily & conveniently find what they is looking for. Since the function of SEO is to gain a better ranking in the SERPS, the net creator has to constantly optimize his web-site in order to cater to the needs of the net user & to make it not as hard for spiders or web crawlers to judge whether the website?s content is relevant to the word/s being searched. Optimization is not a simple & easy task. It involves having to restructure the web-site regularly (by editing the html code & meta tags, changing content, reorganizing the site map, generating an not as hard navigational structure, etc.) so as to modify to the rapidly changing demands of the net user. Still, when completed properly, not only does SEO help a web-site become more useful & therefore, more often visited by the net user, it also helps gain more exposure since it increases the website?s chances of gaining a better rank in the SERPS.
SEM and SEO are not quickly implemented tools. Both require the constant diligence and work from the website creator. If the creator has a passion for providing the internet users with what they need, then he will be successful in using the SEM and SEO tools to accomplish that task.
Justin Harrison is an internationally recognised Internet Marketing Consultant who provides world class SEO Services to website owners. For more information visit: http://www.seorankings.co.za