Just like a well-oiled machine, your digital marketing strategy needs both SEO and SEM to run smoothly. You’re about to dive into the deep end of the relationship between these two. You’ll uncover how they work together, boost your online visibility, and debunk some common myths. So buckle up, we’re about to shed light on the intricate dance of SEO and SEM in the realm of digital marketing. This knowledge is power in your hands.

Understanding the Basics of SEO and SEM

Before we delve any deeper, you’ve got to grasp two fundamental concepts: SEO and SEM. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is all about increasing your website’s visibility through organic traffic. You’re playing by the search algorithms’ rules, using keyword optimization and link building strategies to make your site more attractive to search engines, thus driving more traffic your way.

On the other hand, SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, is a broader concept that includes SEO and other marketing strategies. This often involves pay-per-click advertising, where you’re essentially buying visibility on search engine results pages.

The goal here is control. You want to take charge of how your website is perceived and discovered online. Through effective SEO, you can influence what terms your site ranks for, improving its chances of being found by the right audience. With SEM, you’re not just waiting for traffic to come organically. You’re actively pursuing it, investing in opportunities to get your site in front of as many eyes as possible.

The Distinct Roles of SEO in Digital Marketing

You’re about to explore the distinct roles that SEO plays in the vast world of digital marketing. With SEO, you’re not only optimizing your online presence but also ensuring a seamless user experience, thus gaining control over your brand’s digital narrative.

• Keyword Optimization: This process involves selecting the most suitable keywords for your content. By doing so, you’re ensuring that your website appears in the search results when users input these terms.
• Link Building: This is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. A good link building strategy can significantly improve your website’s visibility and credibility.
• Content Creation: SEO isn’t just about keywords and links. It’s also about creating quality content that attracts and retains your audience.
• Traffic Analysis: This involves studying the behavior of visitors to your website. By doing this, you’re able to understand what works and what doesn’t, allowing you to make necessary adjustments to improve user experience and ultimately, boost conversions.

In essence, SEO is a powerful tool in digital marketing that can help you draw in more visitors, improve user experience, and even increase your conversion rates.

The Unique Contributions of SEM to Online Visibility

Interestingly, while SEO focuses primarily on organic search results, SEM can significantly amplify your online visibility by utilizing paid search strategies. With SEM’s importance on the rise, you’ve got the power to control where your brand appears in search engine results, and to whom. Not just that, SEM advancements allow for laser-focused targeting, enabling you to zero in on your desired demographic.

Visibility optimization is a key aspect of SEM techniques. By bidding on the right keywords, crafting compelling ad copy, and continually optimizing your campaigns, you can elevate your brand to the forefront of search engine results. SEM trends, such as automation and audience segmentation, allow for even greater control and optimization.

How SEO and SEM Complement Each Other

Surprisingly, you’ll find that SEO and SEM aren’t competitors, but rather, they complement each other in ways that can significantly enhance your online visibility. When used together, they form a powerful digital marketing strategy that’s tough to beat.

• Keyword synergies: SEO helps you discover highly effective keywords, but SEM takes it a step further by testing these keywords to see which ones truly drive conversions. It’s a combination that ensures you’re targeting the right audience.
• Competitive analysis: While SEO gives you insights about your competition’s organic keywords, SEM provides data on their paid strategies. This dual approach offers a comprehensive competitive landscape view.
• Local targeting: SEO optimizes for local searches, yet SEM can enhance this by enabling geo-targeted ads. You’ll be attracting customers in your area like never before.
• Mobile optimization & Conversion tracking: SEO improves your site’s mobile experience, whereas SEM tracks conversions from mobile ads. The data from SEM can then help fine-tune your SEO strategies.

The Impact of SEO on SEM Strategies

In the realm of digital marketing, it’s crucial to understand how effectively executed SEO strategies can significantly influence your SEM campaigns. SEO influence is not to be underestimated, as it directly impacts the optimization of your SEM tactics. High-quality, relevant keywords, which are a staple of SEO, can drastically improve your ad’s visibility and click-through rates in SEM.

When you master SEO, you’ve essentially got the key to successful SEM optimization. By utilizing search algorithms to your advantage and ensuring keyword relevance, you can organically pull in more traffic, which then can be converted into sales and leads.

A well-crafted SEO strategy can also help in identifying the most valuable keywords for your SEM campaigns. It’s all about understanding your audience’s search behavior and using that knowledge to your advantage in your SEM efforts.

The symbiotic relationship between SEO and SEM cannot be overstated. They’re two sides of the same coin, with SEO providing the groundwork for the success of your SEM campaigns. So, don’t overlook the power of SEO in shaping and refining your SEM strategies. It’s a game-changer in the world of digital marketing.

Common Misconceptions About SEO and SEM

You’ve probably heard a lot about SEO and SEM, but there’s a good chance that some of the information is based on common misconceptions. These SEO myths and SEM misunderstandings can lead to misinterpreted SEO strategies and SEM strategy blunders. It’s essential to clarify these misconceptions to gain control over your digital marketing strategies.

Here are some common misconceptions:

• Confusing SEO and SEM: Many believe they’re interchangeable. While they are related, SEO focuses on organic search results, and SEM involves paid advertising.
• Instantaneous Results: Some expect immediate results from SEO. However, it’s a long-term strategy requiring consistent efforts.
• Keyword Stuffing: It’s a myth that cramming your content with keywords will boost your ranking. In reality, quality content is key.
• SEM Only for Big Businesses: Small businesses often believe SEM is not for them. However, with the right strategy, SEM can provide a high return on investment.

Avoid these misconceptions to enhance your online presence. SEO and SEM are complex fields that require a good understanding and strategic implementation to yield results.

Successful Integration of SEO and SEM in Marketing Campaigns

To ramp up your marketing campaigns, it’s crucial to pull off a successful integration of SEO and SEM. This involves a strategic blend of keyword optimization, link building, content promotion, and user experience enhancement.

Firstly, you’ve to get keyword optimization right. That means identifying and incorporating relevant keywords into your website content, metadata, and ads to improve your site’s visibility and ranking in search engine results.

Secondly, link building is key. By earning high-quality inbound links, you can boost your site’s credibility and authority, which can, in turn, improve your SEO performance and SEM results.

Content promotion is another crucial element. You need to actively promote your content, both organically and through paid ads, to reach a wider audience and drive more traffic to your site.

Lastly, don’t overlook the user experience. It’s essential to provide a seamless, enjoyable experience for your users to increase your site’s engagement and conversion rates.

Conclusion

In essence, SEO and SEM are two sides of the same coin. They’re not rivals, but teammates in the digital marketing arena. Misunderstandings may arise, but remember, SEO bolsters SEM strategies by strengthening organic visibility. SEM, in turn, amplifies SEO’s impact with paid campaigns. By integrating them, you’re not just optimizing keywords; you’re creating a comprehensive approach to online visibility. So, in the grand scheme of things, SEO and SEM are truly inseparable.

Strategic advertising on various search engines is meant to boost your online visibility and drive targeted traffic to your website. But what does “strategic” mean in a practical context? We gathered a few essential tips to help you create a high-performance SEM campaign that generates results no matter what kind of business you do.

Whether you’re a fresh entrepreneur, a small business owner, or seasoned marketing expert, these tips will help you optimize your SEM efforts and achieve your marketing goals.

Learn from people who’ve done it before

Success often leaves a trail of useful breadcrumbs, and that applies to SEM campaigns as well. Take the time to study and replicate successful marketing campaigns in your industry. Analyze their strategies, ad copy, landing pages, targeting techniques, etc.

Of course, don’t copy them outright, but you can and should draw inspiration from those who’ve already achieved what you’re working for. Adapt their successful tactics to fit your brand and your unique circumstances. You can fast-track your own performance and improve your chances of achieving remarkable results with a lot less effort.

Aim for concrete numbers and people

Before dedicating resources to any marketing campaign, it’s important to clarify your objectives and accurately define your target audience. To begin with, ask yourself what specifically you aim to achieve with your SEM campaign. Is it to increase website traffic by 100% by the end of X month?

To generate Y% more leads next quarter? Once you have a measurable objective, narrow down your target audience. And we mean narrow. Examine factors like demographics, interests, and online behavior to identify an interest group. Then break the group down further according to who is most likely to react to your message.

By analyzing your audience beyond the archetypal customer personas, you can tailor your SEM strategy at a new level and deliver highly targeted stimuli to exactly the right people, maximizing the effectiveness of your campaign.

Make your ad copy compelling

Craft concise, benefit-driven headlines that highlight your unique selling points. Focus on the value proposition, addressing your audience’s strongest pain points and offering creative solutions. Use compelling calls-to-action that encourage users to take the desired action.

You might want to brush up on innovative small business marketing trends, as these insights often grow to be relevant to corporations and the overall market too. Remember, the more contemporary and relevant your ad copy, the higher the likelihood of attracting clicks and driving conversions.

Your keywords should be specific and positive

You already know that keywords are the foundation of any successful SEM campaign. But do you know where to focus your research? Choose specific, relatively uncommon keywords for your product or service. By avoiding broad and widely-used phrases, you can increase the odds that your ads appear to users who are actively interested in what you offer.

Additionally, include negative keywords into your strategy. Flagging keywords as “negative” tells search engines that your ad shouldn’t be served when people search those terms. This prevents your business from appearing in searches irrelevant to your product, saving you money on non-converting clicks.

You might also consider partnering with a reliable SEM company that stays at the forefront of industry developments, including search engine algorithms. Utilize their expert guidance to proof your plans and boost your campaign’s performance.

Optimize landing pages for structure

Make sure that your landing pages are optimized for conversions by aligning them with your ad messaging and offering a seamless user experience. In other words, structure them in the same basic way as your ads. This includes design, message, tone, layout, and navigation.

Perform A/B testing to experiment with different page specifications, headlines, calls-to-action, and forms. Analyze user behavior using heatmaps and user recordings to identify areas that need improvement. Your visitors need to either immediately purchase what you offer or immediately get more relevant information about your product or service.

Monitor and analyze performance

Finally, commit to regular monitoring and analysis of your SEM campaign’s performance to optimize its effectiveness in the long run. Leverage the analytics provided by your advertising platform, e.g. Google Ads, to track key metrics like click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, cost per acquisition (CPA), and return on ad spend (ROAS).

Identify areas where you’re excelling and those that require polishing or troubleshooting. Use this data to make informed decisions on your bidding strategy, targeting options, and ad placements. Staying vigilant and responsive to performance data is how you make iterative improvements and drive better results throughout your business’ lifetime.

To sum up, creating a high-performance SEM campaign requires strategic planning and continuous optimization. Adapt tactics from successful marketing campaigns to fit your unique brand and accelerate your own performance.

Set measurable objectives and concretely define your target audience to deliver highly targeted messages to the right people. Craft compelling ad copy that highlights your unique value and addresses your audience’s pain points. Choose relatively uncommon, specific keywords, and incorporate negative keywords to avoid non-converting clicks.

Finally, optimize your landing pages to align with your ad messaging and monitor your campaign’s performance regularly. Leverage analytics to make informed decisions and drive better results in the long term.

In today’s digital age, enhancing your business’s online presence is essential to reach new audiences and expand the market reach. This is where search engine marketing (SEM) comes into play, offering an effective approach to optimize your website’s visibility and increase traffic. By utilizing SEM, you can strategically position your brand at the forefront of the competition, giving your business the boost it needs to thrive in a competitive environment. With an increased return on investment (ROI), SEM proves to be a worthwhile investment for any business looking to grow exponentially.

Make sure your website doesn’t go unnoticed with search engine marketing – a powerful digital approach that maximizes the visibility of your site in Google and Bing. With clever optimization, like incorporating relevant keywords into content, you can make certain that it ranks highly on SERPs; catapulting organic traffic to your domain! This will result in an influx of potential customers for your business or venture. In this blog post, we’ll explore the competitive edge that SEM services can provide and how you can incorporate its powerful strategies to skyrocket your ROI, paving the way for a successful and lucrative online venture.

Benefits Of SEM Services

There are many benefits to using SEM services for increasing your ROI. First, it can help you get more qualified leads by targeting people who are actively searching for products or services related to yours. Second, it can help you reach a wider audience by appearing in multiple SERPs across different search engines. Third, it can help you build brand awareness and trust with potential customers by appearing in relevant SERPs. Finally, it can help you generate more revenue by driving more qualified leads and conversions from those leads.

How To Get Started With SEM Services

Getting started with SEM services is relatively easy and straightforward. The first step is to identify the keywords that are relevant to your business and target audience. Once you have identified these keywords, you should create content around them that will appear in SERPs when someone searches for those terms. You should also optimize other elements of your website such as titles, meta descriptions, images, etc. so that they appear prominently in SERPs as well. Finally, you should track the performance of these efforts using analytics tools so that you can make adjustments as needed over time.

Tips For Maximizing Your ROI With SEM Services

Once you have started using SEM services for increasing your ROI, several tips will help maximize its effectiveness:

Focus on long-tail keywords:

Long-tail keywords tend to be less competitive than shorter ones since they are more specific and targeted toward a smaller audience. This means they will be easier for search engines to rank for and result in higher conversion rates since they are more likely to attract people who are already interested in what you have to offer.

Optimize landing pages:

Landing pages should be optimized with relevant content and visuals so that visitors stay on them longer and convert at higher rates once they arrive there from SERPs or other sources of traffic such as social media or email campaigns.

Track performance:

Tracking the performance of all aspects of your SEO efforts is essential if you want to maximize their effectiveness over time; this includes tracking keyword rankings, organic traffic levels, conversions rates from organic sources, etc. so that any issues or opportunities can be addressed quickly before they become bigger problems down the line.

Final Thoughts

By following these tips and utilizing effective SEM services such as keyword research tools and analytics software, you will be able to sky-rocket your ROI with minimal effort over time! So, start optimizing your website and content today so that you can reap the rewards of a successful online venture tomorrow!

Did you know that, for 85% of retail businesses, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the most successful strategy for acquiring new customers?

Or that 63% of users will likely click on a paid search ad on Google?

Search engine marketing is a very powerful tool for nurturing leads online, generating higher conversion rates, and improving your business’s overall digital efficiency.

In this article, we will explain what search engine marketing is, what types and platforms exist, what benefits SEM brings for your business, and what best practices to follow when coming up with your own SEM campaign.

What Is SEM?

Search Engine Marketing is the systematic use of search engine advertising platforms to increase brand visibility and attract qualified traffic to the website.

Your business’s SEM-based digital strategies has to consider all the search engines that your prospects and target audience use. It also needs to take into account platforms and websites that rank high in search results for your target keywords.

It also encompasses owned media platforms such as social media, review sites, Google My Business pages, and others that appear in search results and affect your authority.

Some of the most common search engines and their respective ad platforms include:

• Google (Google Ads)
• Yahoo (Yahoo Gemini)
• Bingo (Microsoft Advertising)

The search engine marketing objective is to reach the highest ranking position on a specific search engine.

SEM is quite often – and quite erroneously – mistook for search engine optimization. They are both related to search engines and target audiences who search online using keywords. However, SEM has quite a different approach in that it focuses on delivering ads to prospective customers.

SEM is a business model for monetization of search engines: a great part of Google’s $162 billion in 2019 revenue came from SEM.

What Types Of Search Engine Marketing Exist?

There are several main types of Search Engine Marketing:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Search ads (PPC and PPM)
• Owned Media Platforms
• Third party authority websites (Wikipedia, TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.)

All of these platforms are covered by digital agency services provided by the best online marketing companies out there.

Your SEM strategy should consider how to maximize your business’s reputation on all of these platforms for the purpose of boosting visibility and increasing clicks to your website.

Why Does SEM Matter For Your Business?

Being present on the first page of search results for your target keywords is of critical importance to your sales and online marketing efforts.

For businesses in general, being present online is fundamental to revenue, brand image, and online business reputation. And this is what SEM can deliver.

SEM is very useful when aligning your business with search intent, which users are signaling with their search queries. Knowing their search intent regarding your business puts you in the driving seat to serve them content and messaging that they will respond to.

Other benefits of SEM include:

• Results-based cost: Your business pays only according to SEM campaign results such as clicks and conversions. You don’t pay for displaying the ads on the search page, which is a very cost-effective model.
• Measurable results: Web analytics systems such as Google Analytics keep SEM results thoroughly tracked and measured, increasing the profitability of the campaign. This allows for real-time optimization and adjustment of SEM campaigns, ad copy, targeting, keywords, or landing pages, which lowers the advertising cost and gets scores of higher quality.
• High ROI: According to Google’s Economic Impact report, every paid search click makes five organic clicks on SEPRs and every $1 spent on Google Ads produces $8. Depending on the level of SEM optimization and your industry, the ROI can be higher or lower, but the point is, it is always favorable.
• Accurate targeting: SEM uses targeted keywords that are relevant to your services and products and the terms your target audience is searching for. Researching the right, profitable keywords to use in SEM campaigns will result in more accurate targeting of highly qualified prospects that are likely to convert. SEM also allows you to narrow down your targeting to specific locations, age groups, genders, and other demographic metrics.
• SEO opportunities: Successful SEM campaigns come with another unexpected benefit: they provide useful data for improving your SEO. This can be, for instance, a trend in search patterns that you discover early and implement into your SEO strategy. Also, seeing how your competitors advertise on search engines will lend insight into their keywords.

SEM Strategy Best Practices

To reap the greatest possible benefits for your business online, you need to rank high for your keywords but also convey authority and trustworthiness with your target audience for the keywords they are using.

The first thing to do when coming up with an SEM strategy is to track which keywords you want to rank for. When creating your SEM strategy, keep these tips in mind:

• Know your objectives: The above measuring framework is the basis for a larger search engine marketing strategy that should always be tied to your business’s goals such as generating leads, boosting brand awareness, or increasing sales.
• Maximize your budget: For SEM, maximizing your budget is essential. This can be done by removing negative keywords from ad groups to performing conversion rate optimization to improve return on ad spend.
• Get better results with split testing: To compare ads and landing pages with different designs and messaging, use split testing to acquire conclusive data to support future spending. This can help you establish which ads and combination of ads and landing pages are the most effective. Scaling your marketing by sending funds to the more successful option will benefit your SEM campaign.
• Align your landing pages with your ads: While it is important to create the most enticing and convincing ads possible, it’s also important that you do not neglect the landing pages they will lead to. It is critical that your landing page delivers on the ad’s promise. Align the two by creating a clear correlation between them with copy, messaging, and visuals.
  • The messaging on the landing page must reflect the one from the ad
  • Images and visual cues from the ad should also appear on the landing page
  • Build credibility with social proof
  • Use SSL seals and other trust symbols to boost trustworthiness
• Use return on ad spend (ROAS) as your metric: Even though you can track SEM’s efficiency with several different metrics, using the return on ad spend is generally advised by most marketers. ROAS determines the average advertising spend return with this formula: revenue/ad spend = ROAS.

Search engine marketing is a highly effective strategy for boosting your business’s online success. Its basis is careful targeting of your target audience with relevant ads, resulting in greater revenue and brand visibility.

Author Bio

Tomas is a digital marketing specialist and a freelance blogger. He is focused on new web tech trends and digital voice distribution across different channels.

I don’t mean to kick anyone while they are down but we think it is important to showcase a handful of horrible examples of other individuals and businesses requesting search engine marketing efforts to grow visibility. Search engines evolve drastically each year and many of these examples show the wide disconnect that still exists in the search engine marketing space. There is strategy and quality and there is something else. That something else is not going to help you grow.

From time to time we like to patrol sites like Elance and Guru to see what kind of projects people are requesting services for. Here is some of the worst cases we have come across recently.

Example #1

$25.00 bucks for two websites? Seriously? Let’s start off by saying it is not just about rankings anymore but if you are going to hire a company that approaches SEO with some quality you are going to have to pay more than $25.00 a website. This doesn’t mean you have to break the bank but consumers need to be realistic here. Companies spend significant time executing strategy and growing streams of inbound marketing and visibility for websites.

Example #2

Where do I even begin with this one? Let’s first point out that no site on the planet is going to rank first for the term “Facebook” but Facebook itself. The fact that someone would even think that is possible just blows my mind and really does not understand how search engines work. I don’t expect everyone to understand search engines but some homework should be done if you are going to shop for SEM services.

Next, hours?? This is website marketing not a magic show for heaven’s sake. If you offer services that compliment Facebook you can certainly go after long tail service type keywords but to go after the term “Facebook” as number 1 is just ludicrous especially within hours.

Example #3

Facebook Like’s occur when someone enjoys your brand. You can’t force it no matter how much you try. Sure you can buy shotty services that give your page the appeal of more like’s but if you want quality fans you need a quality business. The fact that someone would indicate they need this within 20 hours is also crazy.

Example #4

More is not always more in search marketing. More traffic doesn’t mean success. There should always be some sort of strategy to the type of traffic that is ideal for your website.

Example #5

For the most part this is not a completely bad request for search engine marketing services. There is one hang up we have with it, time. Search engine marketing takes time when conducting organic efforts. There is a lot of competition everywhere you look and you have to compete against that. If you want to dive into the search engine marketing territory you need to be willing to put the time into it.

Example #6

Let’s first take a good look at the hourly rate indicated, $5 or less per/hour. Maybe during the 1940’s it was okay to pay someone $5 per hour (or less!) but not in 2012. What kind of marketing expertise and guidance are you going to be able to receive for $5 per/hour? I know small children that have lemonade stands that require more for payment.

Example #7

Two words, science project. This is not website marketing, this is 100% science and science does not grow a brand online. Let’s for one second pull one of these ridiculous ingredients out of this request. 156 press releases?? The total cost they would like to spend is $200 for this entire menu. 156 press releases written and distributed is a rather large order never-mind the 741 social bookmarks wanted. This is insanity.

For all of you out there that work in the search engine marketing space you know what I mean when I say “things that make you cringe” when you are discussing in person or over the phone different topics and SEM strategies relating to search engine marketing. I know I have heard my share of comments over the years and if you are reading this chances are you have to.

Let’s go over a few shall we:

“Oh I don’t need social media”

What?? Have you turned on a computer or a TV recently? Every television show is starting to showcase Twitter hash tags and the whole world now revolves around Facebook and Google. Google which has spent the last 7 years trying to figure out how to get into this social space which I think they have finally figured out is another large reason why social media is important. The fact is that social media is required by everyone who runs or owns a business, no exceptions. If you want to be successful online you have to be social online because the overlap between traditional search marketing (I know small shelf life there) and social media is pretty thick.
Here are 3 great examples of social media success:

https://www.brandignity.com/2011/11/twitter-success-story-video/

https://www.brandignity.com/2011/10/social-media-statistics/

https://www.brandignity.com/2011/09/10-examples-of-twitter-success/

“I have to be number 1 in Google”

We all do. The fact is if your goal for your company SEO is to simply be number 1 in Google you are going about it all wrong. SEO is not a race it is a process and a journey that is almost always engulfed in improvement. Search engine optimization is a rather slow process which is only getting slower because every day more and more content is being dumped and more businesses are firing up their own SEO campaigns. SEO today is all about improving your standings in the search space and building your brand not just being #1.

“Well I was told this is how you are supposed to do it”

There are many different philosophies and approaches to building a brand online and conducting SEM. Often times no two approaches are alike which is why it is important to have an open mind to all SEM efforts and activities. If someone once told you that something should be done one way that does not mean that it is the only or even the right way.

“Oh I don’t need a website”

Folks if you make a paycheck selling anything anywhere you 100% without a doubt absolutely need a website. You need to have a focal point you can send your traffic so they can learn more about you and so that you can build your brand in front of your internet audience. A business without a website is like peanut butter without the butter. It just doesn’t work.

“SEO doesn’t really work”

It actually does work it just depends on what your idea of SEO is. For many the definition simply revolves around rankings but the reality is that the definition is multi-pronged. SEO when done correctly will build your brand for company branded search queries and also bring a steady stream of inbound traffic over time while increasing rankings and conversions on your website. To simply dismiss the process of SEO because you are not number 1 is just silly.

“Do you guarantee rankings?”

If you ask this question you should take a moment and read this official Google SEO page discussing this very topic.

Here is the link:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291

“I got SEM services before for $49 per/month?”

Those weren’t SEM services; you were just paying for a pretty report every month. It is not all about money but like everything on this great planet we live on you get what you pay for. Do you really think you can have a successful online marketing campaign for that dollar amount? You just can’t. It takes time and quality knowledge to execute a healthy search engine marketing campaign, something that typically has a realistic price tag attached to it.

“How come they rank and I don’t?”

Well search engine rankings are a lot like DNA, it can be complicated. With over 1,000 search signals and a fast evolving industry there could be many different reasons why a competitor web page out ranks yours. Everything from hosting, to URL age to social media influence play a pivotal role in why pages rank the way that they do. Don’t assume it is all about links although links are an important part of the equation.

“I need 100,000 Facebook Fans”

Great! Build a great brand and it will happen naturally. You cannot force people to become fans of your fan page if they do not have some sort of connection with your brand. Companies that promise you X amount of Facebook fans are just taking your money because the majority of those “likes” will most likely be manufactured.

“I need an article re-written 25 times”

And why do you think that will work? Because it won’t. Article spinning is an old method of article “marketing” (and I use that term loosely) in order to inundate the search space with an article and get the most use of one piece of written garbage. Write unique content with catch industry topics if you want your content marketing to work how it should.

SEO can be a very weird and strange type of investment for many new comers. Intangible in nature, no industry standard, no unified approach and very foggy descriptions at times make SEO an even stranger investment for many businesses. There are however something’s that should be part of the process when purchasing search engine optimization that just go without saying. If you currently have an SEO person or company working for you and you are on the fence to let them go, see if they fall into any of these categories.

Impossible to Get A Hold Of

Can you never get a hold of your company or SEM person? Does the phone ring and ring with no answer? Do emails take a week for a response? These are signs that you might want to fire your SEO person. Any professional search engine marketer knows that this purchase is confusing and rather complicated for many businesses and the communication factor needs to be strong. The client needs to know that you are there with answers at all times. Lack of communication can be very frustrating on the behalf of the client.

Vague Answers

I have no problems explaining in depth every single step I am taking when I help a client with their search engine marketing needs. I think some SEO people are scared that their clients will take the information and run with it but the reality is that it is not going to happen. A client needs to know what is going on at all times so they feel good about their investment. Leaving them in the dark is not going to lead to anything good. If you have an SEO person and you have absolutely no idea what they are doing at any given moment I think it might be time to move on and find someone new if the answers continue to be vague.

No Production or Evidence

I once met a client who had an SEO company working for them for a year. When I searched the company name I found not one single piece of evidence that anything was even done. No PR, no article, no business profiles, nothing just a spreadsheet with this most horrible links I have ever see. The right search engine marketing company will have your search results looking nicely polished and robust with a variety of good and useful information to help your brand grow.

No Analytics Increase

Have you been watching your analytics closely for quite a while and nothing has been happening? Has it been 6 months and virtually no new traffic has found its way to your website? Search engine optimization is a long term effort and depending on your industry could take some time to break into the search results but after 6 months there should be some sort of traffic increase, large or small there should be an increase you can see.

No Company Address

If you have all of the above and there is no address for you search engine marketing company the jig is up. There are certain red flags and no address means someone does not want to be found. If they are not U.S based they should tell you up front and let you know what is going on and where they are located. Your businesses marketing is in their hands so you should know everything about them.

I’m not saying go fire your SEO right away but take a look at these factors and see if your company falls into any of these. Search engine marketing is changing and it is important your approach is rock solid so that you can build your business online for the future. Find a vendor you are comfortable with and stick with them.

Optimization and SEO of your Google+ page is going to be an important effort once you get it up and running. Some people do it without really thinking about it and others miss great opportunities on their profiles to enhance the user experience and also their own SEO. The new Google+ profile pages have a great deal of opportunity to enhance user experience and strengthen an individuals or brands search engine optimization efforts.

For anyone who understands the world of SEO they know that links are quite important and that is one area the new Google+ pages really give you an opportunity to showcase what you have.

Let’s take a look at some of the more obvious locations.

• Top Title: The top title portion allows for a tag line underneath your name. If you are using this profile for professional reasons label exactly what it is that you offer. Try utilizing some keywords into the mix as well. Are the keywords going to be the make or break the business for you? Probably not but it really doesn’t hurt to utilize some when ever you can.
• Introduction: The introduction is an important area to focus on because it really allows you to put some nice content into the mix while being able to leave behind hyper linked keywords. Now you don’t want to over do it with your hyper links but a few that make sense for your audience will certainly help you out quite a bit.
• Side Bar Links: This is where you really need to pay close attention. This area gives you the ability to really showcase yourself as a business and also a brand. Links to other profiles, areas of contribution and recommended links are what Google wants you to showcase from a link standpoint. You want to make sure you utilize this area not only to build your credentials as a professional in your field but also to drive some nice link power to each source assuming some of the sources will be sites that you personally own.

Google has been scrambling for some time now to incorporate an impactful social feature that actually grows and prospers and Google + has been their best attempt to date. So many efforts over the years have hit the cutting room floor but their latest attempt is certainly gaining some traction.

Google announced this week that their +1 button will start appearing in the Google display network as well.

“As we explained in our initial announcement several weeks ago, we believe that incorporating personal recommendations into display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising. A display ad becomes much more powerful when people can see which of their friends and contacts have chosen to endorse it.

We’re working to add the +1 button and annotations to all eligible inventory over the next couple weeks. So while you might not see them immediately, we’re working hard to roll them out to all advertisers as quickly as possible.”

How will this change their display advertising?

Well Google is hoping that it creates a type of social connection with all audiences when it comes to advertising. Advertising is advertising but if you ad the social connection to it you can virtually change the way people look at certain ads.

Spelling plays an important role when it comes to the SEO of a website. Google claims it is not a direct factor they use but it does have some weight when determining the SEO power of a web page. Now with that said you should always try and use proper spelling and grammar but mistakes do happen — we are only human.

In this YouTube video Matt Cutts discussing just how spelling and grammar can affect your search engine optimization.