Search Engine Marketing

You must have heard a lot about search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO).
You must have also tried ways to find the difference between them. So let me today focus light on Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
Search engine marketing (SEM) is also referred as internet marketing. Actually there can be a number of definitions for search engine marketing, let me give you a simpler one. Strategies and Techniques that are applied on the internet to sell and advertise company’s products and services is called search engine marketing.
There is lot of difference between search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO)., but the main reason that differentiates both of them is the landing page. In SEM you decide which page visitors see, whereas in SEO a search engine decides which page the visitors see. There are lots of ways to promote your product online to meet your company’s goal. Following are some of ways practiced in SEM:-

• Search Engine Optimization: - SEO is about understanding the elements a search engine is looking for and to include those elements in your site. So that the search engine includes your sites in top ranked pages when a user searches a term. You have to make your site search engine friendly and at the same time user friendly.




• Title and Meta tags: - Make sure your keywords specific to your site should appear in your title and Meta tags. Some of the tools available on internet can be of great help like Google keyword selector and overture keyword selector tool,


• ALT tags: =- Images make your site visually attractive and carry great importance in search engine ranking. You must include the keywords in ALT tags as they are crawled by spiders.
  
• What to avoid: - Avoid JavaScript, frames, and flash content in your site. As they are not crawled by search engines.


• Professional SEO help: - If you have the budget, hiring professionals to optimize your site can really make a difference. These professionals charge for the quality they bring to work. You can search for these professionals on Search Engine Guides.



• Search Engine Submission: - After you have done all the hard work on search engine optimization. Now its time to get your site listed in top web directories and search engines.




• Search Results: - Submitting to web directories helps search engines to list your site in their databases and search results.


• False commitments: - Never be fooled by services that claim that they would deposit your site to 500,000 search engines. That is a complete waste of money.


• Services that matter: - If you are hiring professional SEO’s they can be of great help. They develop strategies that will suit your site.



• Link Popularity: - Link popularity is the number of incoming links to your site from other sites, directories, and articles. More the number of incoming links to your site the better results you will achieve.




• Links to your site: - Deposit your site to web directories. If they accept your site, your site will get a free link.


• Exchanging Links: - By exchanging links with potential sites that can be a complimentary to your audience is a good process to increase your sites link popularity.


• Good content: - Good content is always the king. Good content can drive visitors to your site.



• Paid Inclusion: - Paid inclusion is another way to include your site in search engines and search directories. In this process you don’t have to wait for the search engine to index your site,



• Pay per Click: - Pay per click is a way to include your site in search results on the keywords you wish your site should appear. You decide how much you are going to pay each time a visitor clicks your sites URL. The higher you decide to pay for each click, the higher the search ranking your site would achieve.




• PPC search engines:- There are lots of PPC search engines. The larger the search engine, the more you have pay for your keywords to get to the top of a search result.


• Big Players: - Some of the big companies in PPC industry are Yahoo and Google.


• Important Points: - Start your investment with low amount and keep an eye on the number of traffic you are getting from PPC and how many of those visitors are converted into payable customers.


• Consult: - Better consult a person who has mastered PPC as they can guide you better. The other alternative is to hire some professional SEO.



• Traffic Analysis and Log Files:- Log files enables you to know how many visitors are visiting your site and how many potential traffic you are generating.




• Traffic analysis is a way to know on which keywords visitors are visiting your site


• How your site is performing.


• Which pages of your site is most popular.


• The exact or the geographic location of your site.


• Which search engines are visiting your site.


• Which pages of your site is crawled.


• Errors that may have occurred while crawling your site.