SEO vs SEM

Recently I’ve been wondering how to advertise online through Google and get my website on that first page.  I had to understand how to market through Google and other search engine sites, this also had to be an effective marketing strategy.  ‘Search Engine Optimization’ and ‘Search Engine Marketing’ are effective ways to move your website to the top of the search engine list.  When I say top of the search engine keep in mind that it is for specific keywords and web content, SEO is no easy task especially compared to SEM.

Buying your way into a search engine is how SEM works, this can be a very effective way to advertise.  Most major search engines carry paid placement listings, where advertisers are guaranteed a high ranking, usually in relation to desired words. These paid listings can be found normally at the top of a website or on the right or even left side of the web page.  Placing ads here can be expensive and costly, but this is a fast way to get to the top however the down side here is that web surfers might not click because they see it as an online infomercial.

SEO is another way to get a page one rank it uses an organic approach; it starts with rich page content and utilizing key words for the search engine spiders.  A search engine spider is a program that searches web-pages all over the internet, it is designed to retrieve all the sources relevant to keywords that are typed into the search engines.  Web page designers have to build a site that creates stickiness for users to come returning, easy for the spiders to search for keywords or content, and linking from other pages is important;  all these factors play significant part in how well your web page gets ranked! Linking to hundreds of sites or adding huge quantities of content will red flag your site and possible be penalized or worse banned from being in the search engine.  This process takes time and if done well can keep you in the top position for months or even years!  The best part is that your web page won’t look like an online infomercial and users will be more inclined to click your link in the search engine.

Depending on time restraints and the chose of SEM or SEO is up to you.  The advantage of SEM is that page content is not important as much as the right keyword that your advertisement will show up under, creating a sticky  page that keeps users coming back is another concern.  With SEO it takes more time and effort!  There needs to be rich content, links from to and from other sites, and creating a sticky page to keep web surfers coming back is a must if you want to get onto that first page.

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