Should I optimize my website for Search Engines or market my website to search engines? That’s a big question and I’ve seen lots of confusion in the SEO vs SEM debate. The answer is…”you have to do both”.
Search Engine Optimization is usually seen as a subset of Search Engine Marketing. I honestly prefer to think of them as internal versus external.
Internal
There are many things you can do to make your website more “search friendly”. Google likes blog entries, tags, meta descriptions, alt tags, keyword placement, keyword density, and site maps (plus many many other things). All of these items are on your website and make Google happier when looking at your website. The idea here is to really work your butt kissing valet skills on Google when they show up at your door. Park their car, wipe their nose, complement their spouse and make damn sure their water glass is always full. When the big boy on the block shows up, make it well worth their trip.
External
Just because your own website is chock full of brown nosing goodness, doesn’t mean Google will even deign to send people to your door. Google wants to know that it is sending people to the “right” place, and not just a hole in the wall that talks a good game. There needs to be lots of people (websites) telling everyone how great the place is (hyperlink to your website) in order to be recommended. Each hyperlink is a vote and the more votes your website has the more you will be noticed and recommended. Please remember that not all votes carry the same weight. A vote from your 20 cousins (all named Daryl) isn’t considered as valuable as a direct recommendation from a major news station (or talk show host). Not only that, but you will need to use those same keywords from your optimized website when you go out and start building your constituency. Marketing hasn’t changed as much as people think, it simply started using new tools online.
You want new visitors to your website to find you for the right reasons and you want existing visitors to see exactly what they were looking for when they get to your website. This is a simple concept, but can be very time consuming if you haven’t already figured out your business model and specific target audience.
The objective is not SEO or SEM. The objective is to increase sales, or expose your branding, or relay a positive image. SEO and SEM can move your goals forward, but if you don’t know your real goals, then you’re just throwing your Cheetos to the pidgeons and getting pooped on as they fly away.
Toff Ward
OpenSourceMarketer.com
