SEO, SEM, SMM and Marketing Common Sense

In the Internet marketing world you will often hear terms like SEO, search engine optimization or social media marketing.  Without question, the Internet has experienced prolific growth and the boom is just beginning.  In fact, we are now in the information age revolution which is liberating people and propelling businesses into profits.  So what’s the difference between SEO and search engine marketing (known as SEM) and why does it make sense for your business?  Unlike traditional media where the ROI is unknown and the results are unknown, SEM and SEO takes the consumer from website to click to store to your bank account.  This is a powerful way to market and all of it is traceable and easy to test.

What Is SEO And How Does It Help My Business?

Search engine optimization or SEO is the science of optimizing your website to rank high in search engines like Google.  If you want to rank high in the search engine results pages (also known as SERPS) it will begin with the process of keyword research and competitor analysis.  You will want to have a deep understanding of what your website goal is.  For example, are you trying to generate more leads or raise awareness for a cause or is your objective to sell a product or service on the web?  Depending on what your goals are for your website this could involve varied approaches to web marketing.  SEO is a marathon not a sprint, meaning that it takes time to see the real benefits.  However, a properly executed SEO strategy could be worth its weight in gold resulting in more traffic, higher conversions and online real estate that you control.

What Is A Page One Ranking Worth To My Business?

Ask yourself what is a top ranking worth to your business on hundreds of terms and if that represents 10 new customers or 10,000 new customers then investing in SEO is a wise business decision.  What I love about SEO as a business person myself is that you can conduct an analysis of what your risk and rewards are prior to committing to a large marketing investment.  This is why search engine optimization is a critical part of any online business strategy because if done correctly it can produce rich returns, if done poorly it can get your site burned or banned by Google.  The takeaway for you as a business owner is that you need to deal with an SEO strategist that understands best practice and stay away from Internet marketing pirates that make big promises like they can rank you #1 in Google tomorrow!  Typically, it is these low fee or big promise agencies that can destroy your rankings in the SERPS.  You need to work with an SEO team that knows how to generate authoritative content developed by professional newspaper editors (not me, this is my personal blog and I’m just an SEO guy), but professional writers that can create academic white papers and press releases that attract quality links.

Search Engine Optimization vs. Reputation Management vs. Social Media Marketing

So what is the difference between search engine optimization also known as SEO and reputation management?  The process is similar but much more involved for reputation management because SEO puts the focus on your website whereas reputation management may involve several web properties and social media profiles.  What you need to understand as a business owner is that your online reputation is everything and you must take control of it before your competitor does.  You can utilize press releases and other web 2.0 properties to spread your brand all over the web and this can help you to take control of your online presence.  Social media marketing is the new SEO in the fact that if it’s done correctly it can build links.  You see backlinks are when one website links to another and this is a huge factor in SEO.  So social media marketing can help you to attract links but it also sends social signal which the search engines can utilize within their ranking algorithm.  Inbound marketing is a function of getting website traffic to your site and then having that visitor take action.  SEO, SEM and social media marketing all go together these days blurring the lines between what was once considered different marketing disciplines.

What Is The Value Of 150,000 Followers On Google+ or Facebook?

Getting customers or prospects to your site is very much an inbound marketing game and you will want to utilize social media marketing not just to pull signal and links but more importantly to build online relationships.  Social media marketing (also known as SMM) is a marathon not a sprint very much similar to SEO.  The essense of social media marketing is just that, it is social not business.  However, social media can be a powerful lead generator for your business but you need a strategy that builds relationships first which will eventually lead to customers second.  Instead of the push marketing methods of days long ago, today’s web marketers know that they must pull an audience by giving something of value.  You must entertain, educate and enlighten your audience and in the process you will earn their trust and be rewarded with a customer for life!

Internet Marketing Isn’t About Web Design

It is very important to have a properly designed website so that your user experience is a great one.  Your website design should include the functionality to draw the desired action from the viewer so that you can accomplish your online goals.  For example, if you have a lead generation site then your website should be designed so that the natural response or desired action by the visitor is that they call you or email you for more information.  Even though website design is critically important for web marketing what’s more important is that you have a plan to create web traffic.  This can be accomplished through SEM or search engine marketing which is also paid advertising such as PPC or pay per click.  You can do PPC on Facebook, Google and many other platforms but doing paid advertising will only further your site so far and it can be expensive.  This is where search engine optimization coupled with paid advertising can generate you big returns on your web investment if you conduct the proper research.  There are many companies that represent they can optimize your website, but in most cases I find that people have done everything right on their website except the most important things like SEO and building social signal/backlinks.

SEO Is More Than On-Page And Title Tags

Anyone that is knowledgeable in the field of SEO understands the importance of optimizing your title tags on your webpage.  Before you go optimizing your title tags you will want to do your keyword research and competitor analysis or hire an SEO practitioner that is well skilled in the area of search engine optimization.  Understanding the commercial intent of a keyword is critical to your success as you would want to have a bunch of web traffic to your site only to find that the visitors don’t convert to sales or leads.  So doing on-page SEO is important and optimizing your title tags is the most important on-page factor that you can utilize.  When I meet with most business people to conduct a free site review, I typically find that they’ve done a good job with their on-page SEO.  What most business owners don’t do well is build any backlinks.

How Important Are Backlinks For SEO?

In the world of SEO one of the most important things you can ever do for your website is to build backlinks.  In addition to making sure that your site is easy to crawl so that it can get indexed in search engines like Google, backlinks are the key to deep indexation of your site and the links themselves can help your authority with Google.  Like anything in life, you don’t want to overdue your SEO with keyword stuffing or just get links from untrustworthy sites but rather you will need a content strategy that can help you to attract authoritative links.  The more links that your site gets from well linked to and trusted sites on the web the more the search engines will trust your site.  This basic premise is something that I see 70% or more of business people and web designers making a mistake on.  Again, it’s critically important to have a well designed site and optimizing your content on-page is really important, but what’s more important is that you have a on-going campaign to build links.

Okay Jim Jinright, Show Me How To Do SEO Myself!

If you are a business owner on a budget then realistically I’m probably not the right guy to work with and it is better to be up front about this now.  I understand that most business owners starting out have limited resources and I would encourage you to learn as much as you can about SEO on your own.  If you are transitioning or really on a limited budget then one of the best things you can learn to do in the beginning is to do keyword research and competitor analysis.  There are many free tools for this and I have links to most of the web resources that I recommend.

I’ve trained several SEO practitioners on the art of search engine optimization and the methods of backlinking, so if you have a desire to learn drop me a line.  When I started in the business it was extremely complex and I had to go through a crowd of gurus to get to the true source of best practice information.  If I can help you to avoid the snake promoters on the Internet and point you in the right direction I’d be happy to do so.  Conversely, as a business owner I know that it also makes sense to stick with your core competency in running your business.  So my advice to any business person with a budget is outsource your SEO until such time that you can afford to develop an in-house SEO team.  I consult to many companies and help them to develop their in-house SEO teams and depending on your market and financial resources this can be the best long-term solution especially when leveraged with outsourced teams.

What Does It Cost To Consult With An SEO Company?

There are many search engine optimization companies that will charge you five thousand dollars just to talk to them.  There are other SEO companies that will promise you a #1 ranking in Google for $150.00 a month.  The company that I founded the SEO Syndicate ™ consist of a global team of SEO practitioners, web developers and content writers and we typically charge $300.00 an hour for web consulting but we do an initial consultation for free.  When it comes to SEO and your budget you have to take into account the scope of work.  It might cost $500.00 a month or $50,000.00 dollars a month depending on the scope of work, market and competition in your industry.  However, before you go spending that type of money it is in your best interest to do a site analysis and have an SEO look into your competition online.  When we do a feasibility check into a online market we like to develop an understanding of what your customer value is.  For example, if your customer value is $1,000.00 per customer, then you shouldn’t have a problem paying $100.00 in marketing to get a customer that makes you ten times that.  The goal of SEO is to lower the cost of getting your customer so that you develop an online formula that you can duplicate, scale and maximize for profits.

If you need help navigating the web then send me a message or call me for a private consultation at (214) 884-5919