Search Engine Marketing Isn’t As Complicated As They Would Have You Believe

By Author: campbelltwo
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Do you know what the difference is between SEO and search engine marketing? They’re not as different as you think, and are often used interchangeably. The companies that charge exorbitant fees for these services, whatever they call them, will usually try to shroud them in mystery, making you believe that no one but them can get you to the top of Google Page One. That is, of course, simply not true. Not only can you find someone more affordable, many of the tasks you can do yourself.

Search engine marketing is a process that involves a lot of time-consuming work, time that you likely don’t have, the reason you look to pay someone else to do it for you. In order to be effective, you need to write hundreds of content pages, articles and press releases, submit your site to countless directories and websites in your niche market, and code each page of your website so search engine spiders will come and index it. Once all that is done, for best results, you’ll need to create an internet marketing plan that includes managed PPC campaigns and web advertising.

You’re probably thinking most of what we mentioned in ...
... the last paragraph classifies as SEO and not SEM. A few years back, the trend with internet marketers was to polarize the two and make you believe they were competing forces, not complimentary of each other as we know they are today. The marriage of the two approaches has led to a merger of the terms. Due to a surplus of unscrupulous companies and individuals doing this type of work, an image change was in order. What better way to begin than to change the name of the services offered? For many companies and clients, particularly the new guys on the block, SEO has now become SEM.

Of course, there are certain elements of the process that will always be pure search engine optimization. Doing a keyword analysis and updating your content with the proper keyword density are definitely two of those tasks. Coding could also be considered SEO, as could link building to free directories. Paid directories and PPC have traditionally fallen under search engine marketing, as has any other services where you pay to get traffic back to your website.

Why re-write the definitions now? Google started it. By instituting Google Farmer back in February of 2011, they eliminated one of the key elements in SEO marketing – link purchases. Link building had always been a traditional SEO task, and even though buying links was a direct expense, it never fell under SEM by the old guidelines. By declaring it a “black hat” process, Google placed an additional stigma on the SEO industry as a whole. Expect to see the words “search engine marketing” more often now as start-ups shy away from SEO titles and URLs.

The upside for established organic SEO companies that have been building links naturally is that they now have the reputation of being almost clairvoyant in their selected marketing strategies. In reality, it was just common sense. Google has been struggling for years to find a formula that rewards quality and eliminates the ability of companies to “buy” their way to the top. It appears they’ve finally done it, and internet marketing has changed forever because of it.
For more info
http://www.eliteseomarketing.com/