Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Marketing

Recently I have been writing more about SEO and SEO related topics. Well today I realized that some of our less advanced readers might not know or understand what SEO is and how it works. Every webmaster should know at least the basics of SEO and SEM since they can be the decision maker on whether a site thrives or dies on the net. The problem when writing about SEO and SEM is that too many users out there have their own definition of these two terms and what exactly falls under each one. So here I will explain what I believe falls under each one and give a few good examples of each.

What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is a specialized art form for many users. When it really comes down to the basics, SEO is the art of manipulating on page elements and site elements to get the best possible ranking from a search engine possible. This can include anything from changing a site structure to editing page content allowing for better keyword placement.

The SEO concepts for a site are something that should be in the mind of any webmaster from the very first planning stages of a site. While it’s possible to go back and implement SEO idea at any time, you will be able to save time, money and labor by making sure that SEO concepts get done from the beginning.

A few examples of SEO concepts are:

• Indexability or Spiderability – This is the idea that search engine spiders, or bots, can reach your pages with little to no effort. Certain page elements and layouts can stop this from happening so none of your pages in up in the search results. Creating pages in javascript or flash are good examples of what can stop this.
• Friendly URL’s – This goes along the same lines as spiderability. It used to be that spiders couldn’t read URL parameters like id=432 or page=5 that are located in the url after the question mark, ?, sign. Now engines have gotten better about being able to read these but they can still cause some spider confusion. Most search engines, including Google, recommend that you have no more then two of these in any URL on the site. The best practice is to eliminate them all together.
• Robots.txt File – The robots.txt file tells spiders which directories on your site they are not allowed to visit. This is a great way to block certain sections of your site from showing up in search results. With that in mind its also extremely easy to accidentally block your entire site from the search engines. Be careful when editing your robots.txt file.
• Page Layout/Elements – Proper use of HTML elements can be a great SEO improvement for any site. Using Alt tags on your images and heading tags to layout your on page content can help spiders better understand the layout of your page. They are also great places to emphasize search phrases you wish to show up in the rankings for.
• Content – Unique and good quality content is one of the best ways to show up in the search engine rankings. When people search for terms and phrases they are looking for quality information that they were not able to find somewhere else. The best way to get visitors is to be the one providing that information.
• Keyword Placement – Notice that I didn’t say “Keyword Stuffing”! Keyword placement is the idea of working your keywords into that good quality content as best you can while still making the information valuable to the reader. Keyword Stuffing is the concept of forcing the keywords into the content as many times as possible. You want to do the first one.

What is SEM?
SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing, which currently has many definitions. According to WikiPedia, SEM is the practice of online marketing to increase your ranking in search results pages via paid advertising. As far as I am concerned SEM is the practice of online marketing to increase your ranking in search results pages via marketing efforts other then SEO. So basically anything you do online to increase your ranking that doesn’t require you to change your website code or structure.

SEM typically happens after your website is complete and are ready to start getting traffic. A couple examples of SEM are:

• Link Building – Many search engines, including Google, determine the value of your website by the amount of links you have, among other things. Gaining links from quality/authoritative sources is a great way to increase your ranking in the search results pages.
• Social Networking – Use social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Digg to announce and share information about your products and services. This can be a careful balancing act. It’s important to be engaged with users on these networks and bring value to the community. Not just push your product information.

So that’s it. Those are the basics. If you have any more examples of SEO and SEM tactics, please let us know in the comments below!