The Whole Package of Search Engine Marketing

After doing a lot of research, I've come to the conclusion that there are a lot of misconceptions about Search Engine Marketing. The most common mistake is to use the terms Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) interchangeably (SEO).

One would think that people who say they are SEO experts would know what they are talking about and be able to tell the difference. This doesn't seem to be the case, though. The Internet is full of wrong information from people who say they are experts. I guess this shows that there are a lot of cowboys in the industry.

First, let's talk about what "Search Engine Optimization" means (henceforth referred to as SEO).

SEO

SEO is the process of changing a website's structure and content so that it ranks higher in a search engine's organic results. The techniques can be broken down into several areas of work, which are described below.

1. Page is ready Search engines want to crawl HTML code that is clean. Validating every page of a website is the best way to get rid of mistakes and bad coding.
2. Site is ready Web bots from search engines follow the links on your site to find new pages to index. If a web bot finds a broken link on your site, it can't keep crawling it. Make sure you have no broken links. Also, provide a site map. On my website, www.pro-seo.co.uk, you can find a tool for making site maps.
3. Copy When you write the text that people can see on your website, it should be set up so that it includes the two most important keywords for that page. Make headers with the keywords. Work your keywords into the text of the paragraphs, putting them near the beginning, in the middle, and near the end. Make some keywords stand out by making them bold, italic, or underlined.
4. HTML tags The Title tag is the most important of these. Get both of that page's keywords into the Title tag, but don't repeat them. For example, if your main key phrase is "diet plans" and your second phrase is "diet supplements," the Title tag should say "diet plans and supplements." Do not use the word "diet" over and over, because search engines might think you are spamming. If your main goal is to improve your Google ranking, you may have forgotten about the Meta keywords and Meta description tags. Don't, because there are more search engines than just Google, and they can all bring traffic. Also, put your keywords in your H1 tags, H2 tags, alt attributes, and, most importantly, your link text.
5. Choosing the keywords It is very important to choose the right keywords for a page that you want to rank well for. The most obvious keywords are not always the best choice, and they are often very competitive. Make wise choices.
6. Site structure Your website should be structured in such a way that each page can be optimised for a maximum of two keywords. Don't try to optimise one page for a lot of keywords. Remember that you're writing for your readers. Writing copy is a balancing act between what users want and what search engines want. This is easier to do on a site with a good structure.

And after you've done all that for every page on your website, you might be wondering where SEM comes in.

SEM

SEM includes SEO and all the other things you can do to make your website more visible in search engines and get more people who are interested in what you have to offer to visit it. Here's a short version of the list:

1. Pay-per-click campaigns (PPC).
2. SEO (see above).
3. And anything else that will get people to notice your website.
4. A plan for building links
5. News stories.
6. Banner exchanges.

So, SEM is the whole thing. While SEO techniques are an important part of that package, they are not the only part.