A question I am asked often about is the difference of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing). As you would expect these are related, yet SEO is the on-page optimization of the web pages where as SEM is the marketing methods after the web pages are completed.
It is important to remember that the self-titled SEO/SEM professionals who spam your email are often charlatans who are seeking to exploit your ignorance on what is needed, and who in some cases will actually hurt your website’s reputation and ranking instead of help it. To avoid a costly mistake it is important that you understand what SEO and SEM are and the methods that are commonly used to provide for each of these. Please let me know if you have questions on what I’ve written.
Understanding SEO
Define the Keywords to target for
To optimize the web pages for the search engines (primarily Google) you first need to define the words and short phrases that will most likely be entered in a search query to find your website. In the past one could use the Google Keywords Tool (part of AdWords) to see the most popular “related” search terms for a word or short phrase; now this tool requires one to have an AdWords campaign in place linked to a credit card. If you don’t have an AdWords account you can create a list of the words you think will be most likely searched for your business type/service (including your region for local business), and then enter each in the search box. For each search query you will see a “results” number at the top of the page. Keep track of each of these and you’ll soon have a list of popularity for the chosen word/s. To find the best keywords, a good option is to view the source code of your top ranked competitor websites and look at their home page title (and other pages to a lesser degree), and the home page description meta-tag. A well optimized website will use the same keywords (the words they are targeting for) in all of the key areas of a web page (shown below). Once you have a list of approx. 10 popular keywords you need to add them in the correct way and locations.
Using Keywords in the Meta-tags
Within the source code of a page are meta-tags. As noted above the most important ones are for title and description.
<title>Your Title – between 50-60 characters with the most important keywords added first</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”Your Description – between 150-160 characters, written as a “readable” sentence.”/>
In the past the “keywords” meta-tag was commonly used, yet Google no longer uses it so it isn’t needed in most cases. The “robots” meta-tag is only used to let a search engine known not to “index” a page (not be included in the search listings) or “not follow” (not crawl the links on the page); these tags are not something you need to include unless you don’t want a page to come up in a search.
The home page is indexed the most often and fully, so it is really important to ensure that you have this page optimized effectively. In addition to the title and description meta-tags you need to ensure that your targeted keywords are in place within the page copy as well. The “correct” ways to add keywords to a page include the following by order of importance:
- Headings: <H1> to <H3>. Heading are the titles of a section within a page, and should include the keywords that refer to that section of a page’s content.
- Slideshows: Most header sliders allow for HTML text overlay. This is great place to include short keyword rich sentences.
- Body text copy: Keywords need to be added within the top 1/3 of a web page (known as “above-the-fold”) where possible; a keyword density of 2-4 percent is best on the page overall.
- Navigation: Keywords in menu names (html links, not graphical).
- Image names: Use keywords within image names with a dash or underscore between words.
- Link names: Use keywords for all hyperlinked names, both internal linking and external. This includes PDF, PPT, etc.
- ALT tags: ADA (American Disabilities Act) accessibility tag which provides mouse-over description for images.
- TITLE tags: ADA (American Disabilities Act) accessibility tag which provides mouse-over description for links.
Other SEO considerations
- Time on a page: Include engaging content, especially resources of use to visitors; a resource page is a good idea for most industries. All external links should use the “new window” tag of target=”_blank” to ensure that a visitor doesn’t leave your website by clicking a link.
- Ample text content: A website with lots of text content will be perceived as more established than a website with less content. The additional content also improves one’s chance of getting indexed for a given word or phrase.
- New and changeable content: Blogs are a great way to provide new content to visitors, which in turn provides more content to be indexed.
- Optimized graphics and scripts: Pages need to load quickly to be fully optimized, and slower pages are penalized. Suggested options are cache engines, compression, minification of scripts and css, etc.
- Mobile Friendly: Responsive pages with a viewport tag will rank higher in Google.
- Time on the web: The longer a domain is registered the better will be its ranking. Avoid changing a domain where possible.
- Traffic: The more visitors you have the better will be your ranking. Utilize inbound links, social media, etc.
- Social shares: Websites that are “shared” and “tweeted” about will improve in ranking since they are perceived as having value to visitors and they provide traffic potential.
- SEO friendly content: Where possible ensure that your website forms, banners, and other page content is created with HTML (not graphical); create PDFs from a word document (which can be read by the search engines), not a document scan.
Understanding SEM
Search Engine Marketing is the process of getting a website found online and encouraging new and repeat visitor traffic. There are commercial and free inclusion options.
Website Submission
Initially you will want to submit your website to the primary search engines and directories. Google is the most important place to submit to do to usage popularity, yet other engines and directories can be of some value, especially in some industries. You can view our site submission recommendations in our resource section of our website.
If your website has been online a while your marketing efforts should start by doing a search of your business name and recording the URL of every website your site is listed. When you find your site listing you will need to “claim” it to edit, for which most will offer a “free” account which does provide editing, though often to a lesser degree. Next you should do a search for your industry. For example, if your business does residential roofing in Sacramento you should do a few searches as you think your business type will be searched for, which I would expect “Sacramento Residential Roofing Company” or “Sacramento Roofing Business”, and so on. Search the first few pages at Google and record all the places that allow you to add a link/listing (or just the free options if you don’t wish to pay for SEM); and just as an FYI, I would never suggest paying for a listing unless they come up on the first page of the Google results.
Directory Submission
From the list you created the popular directories will most likely include YP.com (yellowpages), SuperPages.com, WhitePages.com, and Merchant Circle. For many industries (construction, medical, elder care, etc) there are also industry specific directories as well which are very popular yet these will often cost for inclusion.
Review websites
Getting your website listed on review websites is an important part of SEM. Review sites (especially Yelp) are always ranked highly, and many visitors will search a business on review sites before contacting them. Lesser important review site options include Angie’s List, Judy’s List, Google+ reviews, etc. Of course you need to encourage your clients to review your services since a listing only has value if there are enough reviews and they have ranked your website highly.
Social Media Pages
Social Media websites have become increasingly important as a marketing tool since they provide the opportunity to reach new visitors, to engage your fan base and provide changeable content (similar to a blog), to provide promotions, inbound links to key website pages, calls-to-action, etc. For most websites you will want to have a Facebook page and a LinkedIn account for the business or the owner or other key personnel. Other good options include Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, and Instagram.
Video
The inclusion of embedded video on your primary pages is a great way to engage visitors. YouTube and Vimeo are also highly searched, and they often come up high in the search listings which provides the opportunity of quality inbound links. Note: Quality links to refer to websites that have a good online reputation. Most highly ranked websites do, yet not all.
Blogs, Forums, Groups
Commenting as a visitor can be very effective for industry blogs, forums, and Facebook groups. It is important however to comment, like, and share information that doesn’t seem “spammy”. As you become known as a contributor (and most important as an ‘authority’) you will be able to occasionally add a link back to your own website, blog, or social page that relates to that topic.
Request Link inclusion
It was popular in the past to do a link exchange, yet this is not as possible as it once was for a variety of reasons. What is effective (yet can be difficult) is to contact a business of a related industry which you are not in direct competition and ask them if they would be willing to include a link back to your website, for which you would provide a short paragraph about your products and/or services. In some cases you can ask if they would be willing to do a review of your website, or to feature it. Even a short mention with a link can be helpful.
Newsletters and Email Campaigns
Newsletters can be challenging to maintain per a regular schedule, but if you have enough to share then this is a good way to share the latest company and industry news, promotions, and other timely content. Email campaigns (unsolicited) were popular in the past, yet most will end up in one’s spam box do to ISP and Mail Server filters so is not recommended in “most” cases.
Paid Advertising
If you have a new business and need to improve your site ranking fast then Google AdWords is the best option (options include PPC “pay per click” or PPV “pay per view / impressions”). If you have a good Facebook page then I would also suggest Facebook Ads as an option to increase visibility.
Before you submit or list your website anywhere you will want to have some information ready. Typically you will be asked for:
- Business name
- URL
- Business type
- Business Address and Contact Info
- Year business started
- Short list of products/services
- Description of business/services
- Representative photos of business
Always keep a list of everywhere your website has been linked to, and especially the places where you’ve paid for or edited the free listing. Keep a copy of the URL, and your username/password for each in case you need to edit your business information in the future.
Final Notes:
Once your website has been optimized and submitted to the search engines/directories you won’t need to resubmit your website pages (in most cases) since the search engines will automatically crawl a website looking for changes in a website’s pages over time. If your site is new, on a new domain, or you have lots of pages (such as a blog) you can use an XML sitemap to help ensure that your pages are getting indexed. Google’s Webmaster Tools is a great resource to provide XML sitemap functionality, and more. And finally, the use of Google Analytics will provide you a clear view on how a site visitor will interact with your website, and from this information you can assess what needs to be improved upon.
