SEO Training

I've heard of a fire engine, but what is a search engine?

The difference between SEO and SEM is that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation while SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing.

Strictly speaking SEO means targeting just search engines.  It is concerned with getting your site as far up the Google, yahoo and Bing rankings for chosen keywords as possible.  Achieving that is done in many ways.

SEM on the other hand has several meanings in regular use.  Some think of it purely as PPC (pay per click) advertising campaigns.  These are the ads you see on the right of the search results in search engines, and occasionally occupying the top slots.  I like to think of it as much more than that though.

When I think of SEM the word marketing takes priority.  I like to think of Search Engine Marketing as encompassing SEO but taking into account the user experience.

Let me expand on that.  A site may be extremely well optimised from an SEO perspective, ranking well in the major search engines, but that does not mean that the site is a good user experience.

It is a mistake to put SEO ahead of user experience.  I’ll give you an example. The following is SEO optimised text

Car washing by the car washing experts.  At Car Washing Ireland we wash cars all day every day.  When it comes to car washing we are the number one car washing company in Ireland.  If your car needs car washing then you have found the right site.  Contact us and one of our mobile car washing units will be dispatched to you and one of our car washing experts will have your car gleaming.  You will be so impressed with our car washing that you will return to car washing ireland again and again.

Actually, that is terrible SEO.  I have exaggerated it hugely.  The point is that SEO optimised text is not necessarily particularly readable text.  If the quality of English is high, then you use different words or phrases to describe the same thing.  This is at odds with SEO, where you want to repeat your key phrases.

The object is to achieve good legible text that a user will read, while retaining a keyword density that is reasonably high (though not much above 5% of total text).  It would be entirely better for both SEO and the user experience to write the above text with far fewer instances of “Car Washing”.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is all about S......elling!

SEM is more holistic.  It encompasses good SEO techniques for on page content (but not at the expense of the user experience).  It also covers Social Media as well as PPC advertising and even banner or button advertising.  Search Engine Marketing is about selling your site online.

A lot of SEO’s make the mistake of using the meta description purely to put in keywords.  Same goes for the page title.

In the case of the meta description it is fairly likely that google does not include that text in any meaningful way in its ranking algorithms.  I am not saying that you should not put keywords into the meta description or page title, but use them to better effect.

Better effect means using them to sell.  To stick with our car washing example, The title can be “Car washing Ireland”, the meta description could read “Get your car washed at home or at work.  We come to you.  Discount for online booking”.  No key words.  Just good descriptive text that helps sell the service.

The whole reason for this post was because I am writing about Social Media and somebody asked me “what has social media got to do with SEO training?”.

Well these days you can’t market your website online without at least paying lip service to social media.  And if you know your stuff (or get Social Media Training) then you can really make it work for you in a big way.  Look at what happened with the Susan Boyle clip on You Tube.  She became an overnight, international sensation, from a clip of an audition!  Wow.  That just does not happen with traditional media.

Why do companies invest thousands of euros in SEO training?  It’s all part of their marketing mix.  SEO is marketing.  Therefore, SEO is SEM and SEM includes SEO.  By the way.  I’ve just broken a rule there.  I’ve overused the phrases again (my site may pay for all this bad SEO!).  I was only playing with words, but be careful.  Remember we are dealing with dumb machines (no matter how good the algorithms are).  They do not see a bit of word play, but rather an attempt at keyword stuffing, which can hurt your ranking.

So, SEM is all about selling.  SEO is just about trying to get better ranking on Google et al.

One of these days I’ll learn to write short concise posts, but I hope that I’ve cleared up the difference between SEO and SEM somewhat.

There are some simple guidelines for using adwords.

You could of course hire somebody to manage your adwords campaign for you, or you could use the following advice along with some trial and error fine tuning.

Choose your keywords carefully

I made a mistake when I first discovered adwords.  I used the names of every competitor I could think of as keywords.  The logic was sound… anybody looking for a well known competitor would also see my name and have the option of clicking on it and getting straight through to my site.

It worked for two days.  Then it fell foul of Googles quality guidelines (see Ad content below).

When choosing your keywords pay attention to the following:-

1. The search popularity – how many people search for that term (this is your footfall in shop terms).
2. Keyword competition – The higher the competition the higher the price per click.  It is an auction situation.
3. Other similar keywords.  Sometimes a slightly less obvious keyword can give you a better Return on Investmient (ROI).
4. Keyword suggestion tool.  Put in what you think you should appear for and let google do the rest of the work for you.  Just tick any keywords you want to include!
5. Google Trends.  Google trends is great for analysing actual web trafic.  Usefully you can compare keywords by typing in several comma separated keywords.  This is great for showing keyword search popularity for two similar terms like “butchers” and “butchery”.  Google Trends also shows you results by region so that you can target the keywords that are most relevant to your own country.

Ad Content.

It is really very simple.  Your ad content must relate well to the page content you are linking to.  Your chosen keywords for the ad must also be relevant.  The more relevant everything is the less your starting price per click is.  You could have a keyword with low competition (which would signify a low cost per click) but if the quality of the relationship between keywords, ad content and the landing (target) page on your site is bad then that drives up the price.

If you own a Butchers, then an advert that says “My butchers, Finest meats in Ireland, Order online. Nationwide deliveries, www.myButchers.ie” should point to a page that contains all of those phrases, preferably more than once.  Your keywords must also suit the ad.  Having a keyword of “Shopping” will not fit and will cost you more.

Most of you know exactly what PPC advertising is.

Quickly, For those of you that don’t….

When you type in a search query into google Pay Per Click ads are the small text ads that appear to the right of the search results and sometimes as highlighted search results at the top of the page too.

In Googles system these are called Adwords.  Every time somebody clicks on one of them it costs the advertiser.  Usually this is a nominal amount like 20c, but can be as high as €2 or more depending on how high competition is for that search term.

Why use PPC advertising?

If your website is not ranking well for a search term you wish to be found for (SEO in my case), then Pay per Click advertising offers a way of jumping the queue.  You can appear on page one of google (or yahoo / bing /Ask) simply by paying for the privilege.  You only pay for when your ad is clicked on, so you are only paying for actual traffic to your site.  You can set payment caps on what you spend, so that you don’t blow a years budget in a month.

Why Not to use PPC advertising

It is expensive.  €100 a month will not get you far.  The more popular your links, the more expensive it gets for you to rank well.

Compare that to some SEO training.  SEO training can be expensive too, but the results you get from it are free.  If you are ranking well for your keywords then then Adwords become redundant for those keywords.

Ad blindness is also a factor.  Something in the region of 85% of click on ads are made by just 16% of the internet using populace.  That simply means that most people ignore the ads completely.  84% of us rarely click on pay per click adverts.

When to use Pay Per Click Adverts

1. Your site is starting off and has not yet gained any authority in the search rankings.  If your site is new it takes time to build up your rank.  SEO activities take time – something in the region of 6-12 months in general, depending on how much competition you have for your keywords.
2. One off events.  If you have a concert or other event that is a one off, then SEO is not such a good investment.  It takes too long and you will not need the links once the event is over.  In this case using Adwords (or the other PPC ad systems) makes sense.  In fact, with the exception of using social medial it is about all you can do.