So…your website may be the coolest one in the industry and light years ahead of your competitors’ websites…but is it attracting new business for you? And if it isn’t…well, is there much point to having an online presence if no one can find you there? This article is a compilation of the first two articles in our popular Signature 101 Series under Search Engine Optimization and will be a “Cliff Notes” version of the major factors involved in both SEO and SEM. Hopefully, it will provide you with an overview of what’s important in getting your website (and hence, your business) seen online.
SEO vs. SEM
First, let’s clarify the difference between Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. Yes, there is a difference – but it’s not complicated. Search Engine Optimization is just one of the many components that are a part of Search Engine Marketing, that’s all.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website’s individual pages for natural (often called organic) search engine ranking and a major goal is to rank as high as possible, of course. For example, laying out your web page a certain way, writing engaging content that uses your chosen keywords in the best locations, tagging your images with keywords so the engines can see them and writing your outgoing hyperlinks a certain way are all ways to optimize your page for positive SEO. And that can all be done at no hard dollar cost – but it takes a great deal of time and effort, as well as a long term commitment to be effective.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the more global process of marketing your website to the world via the various search engines. Optimization through organic means is certainly one piece of this puzzle…the others being paid or sponsored listings (i.e. Google’s Pay-Per Click Adwords), link popularity, reputation development, etc.
You may choose to limit your SEM efforts to organic SEO and find this a more than sufficient method to achieve the goals you’ve set – especially if you have a restricted budget and wish to spend your marketing dollars elsewhere. For now, just know that SEO is one of the tools you have available in your SEM tool belt.
THE HIGH COST OF EFFECTIVE SEO
Next, we’ll explore the high costs in time and/or money that are associated with SEO…
We’ve all heard how expensive the services of professional SEO consultants are…to the tune of thousands of dollars a month and that you don’t even see results for potentially several months! It would seem that SEO takes a lot of time and money…so let’s explore this, shall we?
The reality is that effective SEO doesn’t HAVE to take a lot of money. But before you get excited, know that it takes an absolutely exorbitant amount of time and if we believe the old saying of “Time is money” still holds true – then yes, it takes a lot of money. I recently read an excellent article by UK-based SEO Wiz that said “At the end of the day, anyone could learn how to implement SEO techniques. I always say only around 20% of it is particularly complex, the rest is time consuming and frustrating!”
So what takes all this time? Initially, it’s developing a strategy that analyzes your target audience and selecting exactly the right keywords to reach them based on how they use search engines. After that, a tremendous amount of time and effort goes into Keyword research and analysis of what your competitors are doing. Only then are you ready to start creating pages and building or changing your website’s core structure.
The creation of fresh and engaging content is the single most important aspect of effective SEO, so that needs to be written and posted to your site regularly. Doing that will naturally drive the next phase of building both in-bound and out-bound links because if you have valuable and well-written content on your website, other valuable sites will find their way to you and want to link up. At the end of the day, THAT is what the search engines are looking for because they rank the placement of pages based on their perceived value and the value of the other sites that associate with them – plain and simple.
As you’ve no doubt ascertained by now, effective SEO doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, moving up organically in the search engines results pages doesn’t happen significantly until months after you begin your meticulous and consistent SEO efforts. The simple truth is that you don’t have any input whatsoever in where Google, Yahoo, MSN or Bing decide to place you — so just take it slow, follow the rules, keep up your daily SEO efforts and wait patiently for success…because it will come!
So the reality is that effective SEO can be accomplished with very little money…if you are willing to learn what you need to know to do it yourself and have both the time and inclination to work on it consistently and on a long-term basis.
Feel free to browse through the other articles in the Signature 101 Series, as they focus a little more in depth on each of the SEO phases described above, starting with how to choose the right keywords to optimize on your website! You’ll also find other educational articles about some of the other areas in which Signature Digital Design provides services, such as Web & Blog Design, Print Ads & Collateral, Photo Enhancement, etc. Enjoy!
