Unfortunately nowadays the web technology landscape has become very complicated, which can be a headache for businesspeople who don't have a background in I.T. One of the many things I believe people get concerned with is the myriad of technical terms floating in the market. SEO and SEM are such terms, so to make things a little clearer here's what they are, how they works, why you need them, what to be careful of, and what you should pay.
SEO
What is it.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. The goal of SEO is to get your site listed at the top of the Google results page ONLY for your relevant target web traffic. Having millions of hits a day on your site is irrelevant if only 5 of them are actual target customers who need your services. Effective SEO means prospects looking for you will find you faster, using keywords you'd expect them to use when searching. A pet-store for example might use keywords like "pet food" which would yield the right kind of customers looking for you. Many companies however would rather use the word "food" which is much more generic term and will result in your site being found in many more searches, but there's a catch, because its more generic, and your content on the site might not reflect the keywords you choose, Google will eventually rank you lower. Google is smart enough to determine if your site is using keywords that are relevant or not, and if you're found to be irrelevant, you'll be penalized over time.
How it works
Prepare to be shocked. All you need to do for an effective SEO strategy is make sure your site is designed well, complies with web standards, and uses correct HTML markup when displaying textual and visual content. That sounds complicated to some, but if you're paying someone to build a site they should be doing the above anyway (which is why I disagree strongly with charging extra for SEO 'services' or 'strategy').
Thats essentially what Organic SEO means. It means you build a good, cleanly coded site with properly marked content, and when Google's Spiders* (*small programs which read everything on the web) come along, they read your content, agree that the keywords are relevant, and push your ranking higher.
Search engines vary in how they actually rank you. For Google, higher rankings are given to sites with 1. Higher traffic, and 2. More links leading to that site. The idea is simple...if a site has popular content, more and more people will use it, and comment on it in other places. Google finds all these other links, comments and trackbacks, and gives a higher rating to those sites that are linked to more often. For example, when searching for 'luxury cars' more people search and discuss Mercedes and BMW, therefore they will have higher rankings than Rolls-Royce (even though its the ultimate luxury car), since almost no-one is in the market for a Rolls.
Why you need it
Having an effective SEO strategy means you get found by your clients faster. Anyone working in the Advertising or publishing business will tell you thinks are changing rapidly. Not only are people immune to typical mass-media advertising, younger generations tend to harbor strong contempt for advertising. So how to you reach your customers if they can't stand advertising, or don't even notice it? Simple, you don't think about finding customers, but focus on making it easier for them to find you. That's SEO, people find you faster.
SEO is a crucial part of ANY website project, and should be included as a standard consideration and not charged separately.
What to be careful of...
Be weary of companies who charge high amounts of money for SEO and SEM services, or those who offer ONLY SEO and SEM services. All they are doing is looking at the existing code of a site, the content and the layout, and restructuring it (just copy-pasting, or adding a few tags here and there) in a way that Search Engine Programs read them more effectively. This is actually a very simple task for anyone with even a basic understanding of web design. Many companies realized they could market this service separately, and since its has such a low investment of time and skill, the margins are VERY high for SEO companies. Is it a service you need? Yes. Should you be demanding that your web developer includes SEO during development? Definitely.
Another thing many unscrupulous companies do is promise dramatic increases in traffic, without mentioning where they are coming from. To improve rankings all that these companies do is post links leading back to your site all over the internet, in forums, in logged chat systems etc. There are even sites which automatically add links to your site all over the net in random, unmonitored forums etc.
This will result in higher rankings in the short term, but this method must be carried on indefinitely, and does not guarantee targeted, useful traffic to your site. Essentially this tactic is inducing traffic through spam. Be weary of any company that SPECIALIZES in SEO and SEM. They're scope is so limited and their tasks so passive I believe its unethical to charge clients for something so basic.
So what's SEM?
SEM or Search Engine Marketing means paying money for targeted traffic through algorithmic searches. That's a complicated way of saying you pay to be at the top of search results. When you search for anything on Google the top and right sections of the page fill with ads which have been purchased by companies. You key in the words you think your customers will be searching for, and if they hit the right terms, your ad will show prominently. Essentially you're paying to be in the top listings regardless of traffic etc.
This can be a useful tool if your business is difficult to locate on the web, or you want to differentiate yourselves as more professional than competitors by having a paid ad. SEM is also useful if your industry is saturated with competitors with not many differentiating services (like SEO companies!).
Its important to understand that in almost all studies, web users automatically assume that if a company pays for ads or rankings, its products will immediately be assumed more expensive than the competition (since they don't have to cover the cost of advertising with Google Adwords for example).
SEM should only be engaged if you are directly trying to capture market-share from weaker competitors in your market. Having a paid listing doesn't guarantee anything however. Some businesses simply don't benefit from SEM models. Therefore its best to get the most out of SEO (ideally FREE), and then move on to paid strategies if really necessary.
The most effective form of marketing in today's information economy is still Word of Mouth. Companies which focus on building loyalty with customers rarely have to worry about new business since social systems today allow instant referral. Social integration is therefore as important, if not more important, than SEO. Luckily the integration of Facebook, Twitter and other social feeds only requires minutes. The more frequent the updates of content etc, the better the results of Social activities.
So how should you start?
Pretty much the majority of companies will have the same strategy when it comes to SEO and SEM. You start first with Organic SEO on the existing website, or the new one being launched. SEO should be free, since in essence SEO means 'make sites that are compliant with search engine spiders'.
If necessary, after some analysis of traffic and website statistics, then intelligent decisions can be made about whether to spend more money on SEM programs. In the vast majority of cases, SEM is unnecessary if working with a company that understands good SEO.
