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 Search
Engine Marketing is using search engines to market a product, service, person or cause (like a political candidate).
Both free search results and the pay-per-click (PPC) ads can be used -- although since this website deals with poker marketing,
PPC is a small part of the picture, due to the major search engines having a variety of restrictions concerning gambling ads.
While marketing has been around for centuries, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a 21st century concept. Any online
business needs to look at SEM in the context of its whole marketing plan, and then look at every aspect of its SEM as
parts of a whole. It should be obvious that a PPC campaign should depend on your organic rankings for various terms.
For example, companies should consider optimizing some pages for organic results while taking algorithmic assets away
from pages they intend to promote via paid placements.
In contrast, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn't marketing itself, it is simply optimizing your organic search
results marketing strategy, which should be part of your overall marketing strategy, online and offline too. Some hired
hands attempt to compartmentalize search marketing, but you really can't do this. For example if Pokerstars
spends millions to promote Chris Moneymaker via television commercials, they certainly better have a website or
webpages where people can find information on Moneymaker if they search the web. To not consider the latter while doing
the former would be a waste of the millions, or at least a relatively poor use of the millions. When it comes to the
Internet, business owners have to look at things more universally. Marketing multiple ways via the Internet is part of
running a modern business. Offline ads, affiliate marketing, paid ads and free search results need to be integrated to
work best. It's not called a "web" for nothing.
SEO is the targeting of free search result marketing. If you want to rank for "Full Tilt Poker bonus codes",
you have to target your resources to do so. This targeting includes choosing to try to rank for some terms more than others
(it's ludicrous to try to be #1 for every single thing), but it also means targeting your websites and webpages for what
you choose to go after. On the most basic level, we want to be found for poker searches, so we build sites about poker, not
skateboarding. If you want to rank for bonus codes, don't build websites and webpages only about checkraising. SEO targets
specific terms, and also "long tail" general areas. Using the above example, SEO doesn't just target "Full Tilt
Poker bonus codes" but also puts you in a position to rank for "bonus code for playing on line full tilt".
Search engines will be with us for the foreseeable future. They can be used in multiple ways to generate visitors, branding and
reputation in probably the most cost effective way since the first person painted a sign advertising a business. |