IN SHORT, IT’S WHAT WE ALL WANT TO DO: INCREASE THE VISIBILITY OF OUR SITE.
WHAT’S SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING OR SEM?
Search Engine Marketing explained for you:
- SEO: Getting traffic to your site through successful use of keywords in your website content
- SEM: Buying traffic through paid search listings using relevant keywords for conversion
To improve the position of your website in a search engine like Google, you can increase your SEO in various ways. Your starting point should always be the content of your site itself. Making sure your site can be indexed in the search engines means doing research to pinpoint the most relevant and popular keywords for your site and its products or services. Then you use those keywords on the site in a way that will generate and convert traffic. If you’re using your target keywords correctly, matching what your visitors are searching for and you’re providing solid and engaging content, you’ve got the ground well prepared. Do you want to know if your website is well-optimized for each search engine? And learn how to improve your SEO and keyword placement for better results?
Do your initial keyword groundwork using our free tool
Start by carrying out a free analysis with SEO Page Optimizer. This tool analyzes your site against Google’s top 10 sites for your chosen keyword and gives you recommendations to improve your results. The knowledge you gain will help you with your search engine marketing (SEM) tactics too. It’s completely free for one scanning analysis per day. Simply register online. Test your site’s SEO strength with SEO Page Optimizer now. It's an easy process that will guide you as to how to re-organise your page content.
Click to get your free daily SEM analysis
Getting the basics to be found right
Your keywords are just as important when it comes to Search Engine Marketing (SEM). This can take the form of SEA (Search Engine Advertising) or SMO (Social Media Optimization). Setting in place a strategy for your search engine marketing is important. Keywords are also important for human visitors: if they encounter relevant keywords while scanning your webpage, they tend to linger and read your content more attentively.
Discover the secrets of SEM
Search Engine Marketing or SEM includes all the marketing techniques to increase the visibility of a website on search engines which in turn will increase traffic. Search engine marketing or SEM is one of the most powerful methods to develop awareness of your business and increase visitor traffic in today's increasingly competitive marketplace. For most businesses with high-ranking websites, their impressive search results have nothing to do luck. They're due to some clever thinking and preparation in one or both sorts of search engine marketing: It is based on two key strategies. The first is optimization for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): this is the practice of applying techniques to maximize your ranking in organic, or natural, search results.
When a visitor types a keyword or phrase into a search engine such as Bing, Google or Yahoo!, the organic results are visible in order of priority on the page. When your target customers are scanning for information about your products and services, your goal is to rank highly in the search engine results. By optimising your site well with the correct use of keywords and their placement in your content, you can enhance your ranking for your target search terms and phrases. You can also improve your results by getting other important sites to backlink to yours. The second is the purchase of commercial links to your site or landing page which get displayed on the pages results of search engines and on their affiliated sites. This is called SEA (Search Engine Advertising). Using Google AdWords is the most well known SEA or PPC (pay per click) strategy. You can use search engine marketing to generate new leads; SEM sells your products, SEM builds your brand awareness and SEM gains traffic that would otherwise have gone to your nearest competitors.
Search engine marketing’s big plus is that it gives you the chance to put your ads directly into the eyeline of your target customers. The fact that SEM can be so carefully targeted is why search engine marketing is such an effective tool. Done well, search engine marketing or SEM can mean you attract more serious prospects who are genuinely interested in what you're offering. Done badly, you might attract visitors but they'll bounce away quickly when they realise that your search engine marketing is not delivering what they expected to find.
Analyse how well your webpage is optimized for a keyword
Develop a strategy that works
If you want to set up a SEM strategy that genuinely delivers measurable results for you, you should start by determining the most popular search terms that lead people to your site. This is all about understanding your target customers' search intent. What search terms will they be typing into a search engine to end up on your site? You would probably be wrong to think that keywords with the highest volume have the most value to you. They don't. It's better to focus on the keywords with less volume that actually deliver you traffic and leads. They should be precisely relevant to the service or product you're selling. To discover this, you need to do extensive keyword research (the reports on your Google Analytics are a good starting point). You shouldn’t rely solely on the keywords that seem the most logical to you but on the long-tail keywords that actually mean conversion.
Long tail keywords get less search traffic, but will usually have a higher conversion value, as they are more specific. For example you might sell holidays to Spain but get most of your business from single travellers interested in escorted coach tours. So rather than using ‘holidays to Spain’; opt for what your target market is searching for: ‘escorted coach tours of Spain for singles’ etc. For a good SEM strategy, it’s important to target several keywords in both your SEO and search engine advertising campaigns. Natural referencing (getting yourself ranked higher in the organic results) takes time and quality content is key, while commercial links via search engine marketing make it possible to attract visits more quickly.
Analyze your site for best keyword use
Fill out the SEO Page Optimizer form now and be better prepared for your search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine organic results
So, if you're at the stage where you've developed your SEM strategy, done your keyword research and you know what terms you want each page to rank for, find out if you've written and structured your content as well as you possibly can.
- SEO Page Optimizer is simple and fast.
- SEO Page Optimizer is easy to use and allows you to quickly get an analysis of your pages. You just type in for each web page the short or long-tail keyword that you want to optimise (be found for) and you’ll get an analysis that tells you point by point the results of your page. Improvement tips are given for each point of analysis.
- The tool offers you one free analysis per day.
Click to try SEO Page Optimizer
Learn for free how to improve your rankings
We believe in sharing our SEM knowledge. Subscribe to our newsletter series here to access our knowledge pool and understand search engine marketing (SEM) better. Receive our regular free bulletins on:
- Getting more customers to your website: search engine marketing (SEM) and well-structured content
- The secrets of Google unraveled: search engine marketing and quality content
Give your website a hike up the SERPs
Even when you have implemented an effective SEM strategy and the content of your website is as well optimized as you possibly can for search engines, it’s possible that the strength of other websites means your site traffic isn’t yet at the level you’re hoping for. That’s why we offer our KeyBoost service. This tool can ‘boost’ any page so that it gets a better position in Google's ranking. Try KeyBoost for free.
How does Keyboost work so effectively?
Keyboost uses algorithms, like Google's, to analyse your keywords. It then positions what are known as 'dynamic links' to your site from other relevant websites. Keyboost does this without altering the content of your website in any way. We offer one Keyboost free trial per domain, for one keyword. To be eligible, your website must be in Google’s top 100 for a search in the UK with your target keyword via organic results as opposed to search engine marketing. The trial takes about a month to complete.
In most cases, after a few weeks, the results are obvious. Most Keyboost users see their rankings improve considerably. They also get better SERPs results than with Google Adwords. Try it now and see for yourself how you can get a better ranking than with either content improvements or reliance on search engine marketing.
Need specific advice?
Not sure you can manage your SEM strategy alone? Our friendly consultants at SEO Page Optimizer will be happy to talk through your individual circumstance, help you with a site audit and assist you with your search engine marketing strategy. If you would like to see how we can help, get in touch with us for an informal consultation. Email us at info@seopageoptimizer.co.uk or call directly at +44 3308 084797.
Synopsis: SEM is also short for Scanning Electron Microscope, but in this case, it stands for Search Engine Marketing. Websites are submitted to search engines and reach a certain position in their organic search results. High quality SEM can impact these positions and make websites rank higher for relevant keywords. SEM thereby increases website visibility through search engines like Google. SEM is key to search engine optimization (SEO) and involves keyword research, competitive analysis, sometimes paid listings and other search engine services that will make a website rank higher and increase traffic through search engines. SEM (search engine marketing) is a broader concept than SEO (search engine optimization). SEO only focuses on a higher ranking in the organic search results, but SEM more successfully targets search engine users by combining advertising links in search results (SEA or search engine advertising) and higher rankings in organic search results. SEO and SEM do not compete with each other. SEO is a part of SEM services. Nowadays, bringing your business to the internet involves visibility in both advertised and organic links, so you’ll need both SEO and SEM to achieve maximum results.
*SEO Page Optimizer & Keyboost, for better website visibility