Comments on: SEO and SEM

By: Justin Kistner

Justin Kistner — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 23:40:26 +0000

I’ve also recently seen SMO (social media optimization) cropping up. I’m ready to just call all of it web presence development. :)

By: gleddy

gleddy — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 02:52:48 +0000

good intro. Interesting topic on the blurring of SEO/SEM, where does one end and the other begin.

Lots of SEO is not actually marketing to me… sure you can quantify the ROI of SEO driven changes to a site, but they are changes made by a technology team (not counting content)

my quick definition:
SEO - technology, building good sites and all the set up plus maintaining this quality (through CMS’s, etc)
SEM - rss + linking distribution, any purchasing of keywords and building relationships with external vendors or websites.
Grey area - content strategies and keyword optimising. I believe this encompases content writers rather than marketing.

Conclusion:
SEO is general needs to shake off this marketing stereotype it has… it really does involve everyone and everyone needs to be involved to a degree.

By: Matt Davies

Matt Davies — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 10:36:25 +0000

I agree Gleddy.

Search engines are powerful tools and people need to realise that.

From a graphic designers perspective it seemed tedious to me at first - but now I am completely convinced that both of these areas are extremely important and can really improve your exposure far more effectively than simply having a “nice” design.

By: Advokat i Oslo

Advokat i Oslo — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:12:14 +0000

Both part are important. Without proper SEO you will not get many visitors from SE. But without a grat looking website, your customers will not stay for a long time on your website.

But as I see it, there is a conflict about great websites using alot of Flash etc.. and Seo.

By: Andrew Faulkner

Andrew Faulkner — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:41:54 +0000

Justin,

I’d personally put that under SEM as it aims to bring in traffic genearally - not through Search Engines. I’ll definitely look up SMO though to see how others define it.

I’m ready to just call all of it web presence development.

I like that. Or internet marketing? I guess that’s general enough.

Gleddy,

Good definitions. There definitely are some grey areas and definitions of these marketing terms vary depending on who you ask and what type of organisation they work for.

SEO is general needs to shake off this marketing stereotype it has… it really does involve everyone and everyone needs to be involved to a degree.

And internet marketing needs to affect the website’s development at every stage too in my opinion.

Matt,

I think one can have both. A nice site can be heavily optimised just the same way as a standards compliant site can be beautiful. I think some of the more popular WordPress themes show this. Matt - as a graphic designer do you think of SEO/SEM from the ground up or think of it as an afterthought?

Advokat,

A flash site illustrates the difference between SEO and SEM nicely. The site will most likely not perform as well as a html based site in the search engines but may attract a lot of traffic due to marketing it well.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 14:22:15 +0000

Thanks for putting this out there, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve corrected people who get all of these so confused, SEO, SEM, PPC…there are big differences!

By: Andrew Faulkner

Andrew Faulkner — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 17:56:54 +0000

Glad to be of service, Rachel. :)

By: Matt Davies

Matt Davies — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 23:35:20 +0000

I admit I used to consider it as an after thought when I didn’t understand it - however now I think of it throughout the whole process. Unfortunately as a front end designer I do not get the control over the content of a site that I would like - that is left to other people, mostly clients. So I can only do the best I can and ensure that any design decisions I take enable the client to make SEO or SEM changes when and if the need to.

I would like to add that I have found that currently there is a lack of understanding in some industries about what SEO and SEM are - and how powerful they can be. I hope in time more people will appreciate these things - I guess articles like this will help to move things in a positive direction…

By: Richard Ball

Richard Ball — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 23:55:07 +0000

Hi Andrew - I generally think of SEO as a subset of SEM where SEM includes PPC advertising as well as SEO. Good definitions via the SEMPO glossary.

By: Andrew Faulkner

Andrew Faulkner — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 12:45:04 +0000

Richard,

Thanks for the link. This should clear a lot of issues surrounding SEO/SEM up.

By: Tadeusz Szewczyk

Tadeusz Szewczyk — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 17:22:40 +0000

Well, as a SEO who does no SEM I have to disagree. To me, and lots of other people, SEO is about organic rankings by creating great content, search (engine) friendly site structure, clean code and making a site linkable in contrast to SEM where you just buy your rankings through PPC ads (Google Adwords e.g.) and such automatically.

By: Marketing Articles

Marketing Articles — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:13:33 +0000

SEO is really the one who makes you site competitively rank in the web. -Jan

By: Andrew Faulkner

Andrew Faulkner — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:59:27 +0000

@Jan: Care to back that up?

By: Marketing Articles

Marketing Articles — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:09:05 +0000

If someone is expert on this marketing strategy and performs the process well there is a greater chance that your site will top on the search result. The higher volume and quality of traffic your site has improve your site’s ranking right? I’m speaking as a newbie here Andrew, what comes out in my mouth is only what I have learned,read and heard. -Jan