What Does It All Mean: SES, SEO & SEM

So you may be asking yourself, what are SES, SEO & SEM exactly?

SES stands for Search Engine Strategy. It is very important to any marketing professional to employ a strong SES because many customers use the internet to find companies and products. Companies want their products or services to be purchases over their competitors and by employing a solid Search Engine Strategy they can acheive this goal. A good SES will lead to brand awareness, exposure and long term return on investment (Stokes, 2011). There are variables such as algorithms that are protected by search engines that companies cannot exploit to their benefit, but by using Search Engine Optimization companies can increase their traffic.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. When we talk about search engines it could be anything from Yahoo, Google, to Bing. There are hundreds of search engines your potential customers can use and you can optimize the amount of traffic your website receives by managing and monitoring your SEO. If you are hoping to create a good online presence Search Engine Optimization is key to your success. Using Meta-Tags, Keywords, and by managing content you are able to tell search engines what your website is all about. This type of SEO is referred to as an "organic search". If companies are not generating enough traffic organically, they can employ a "paid search" strategy. Also known as cost-per-click marketing (CPC), paid search is when a company pays a fee for optimizing their website through a search engine. For example, the first hit at the top of the page on google is often a paid search along with the kits down the right of the page.

A very popular example of paid search or cost-per-click marketing is Google Adwords. Using Adwords you are able to monitor what words initiate the most traffic to your website. It is suggested to check your Adwords weekly to monitor what Adwords are most effective and make the necessary changes to promote web traffic. It is very important to acheive a preferred ranking on search engines so customers find your website over your competitors.
SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. This is an umbrella term that covers everything from Search Engine Optimization (both organic and paid search) to a Search Engine Strategy.

A company with a fantastic online presence is Apple. If you simply Google “Apple” the first result is a paid search at the top of the page for the business Apple. You may assume when you Google “Apple” you would get information about the fruit apple, but the first page of results is all relating to the company Apple. Everything from Apple in the news, apples Wikipedia page, and Apples website can be found in 0.66 seconds with a quick Google search. This company has an excellent Search Engine Strategy as all of the results bring you to information about the company. This company has a very strong brand awareness and exposure and they employ both organic and paid-searches.

I hope this blog post answered any questions you have about Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Strategy, and Search Engine Marketing. If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment on my blog and I will be able to assist you. 

Stay tuned and check back July 4, 2016 to learn about important aspects of Analytics and Metrics!

WELCOME!

Welcome to Digital Marketing for Dummies!

Digital Marketing is the promotion of products or brands using one or more forms of electronic media. You may be wondering what that means exactly along with what it entails. In laymen terms Digital Marketing is the promotion of products or brands using media forms such as the World Wide Web (that’s the internet!).

In this blog I will teach you about the importance of digital marketing, how to be found on the internet by your customers, how to track and analyze customer traffic, how to optimize your hits using search engines, and much more. Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks to learn more about Digital Marketing and how it can help grow your presence specifically on the internet.

As a Marketing Manager, I am in charge of the online presence of the company I work for from managing our social media, to creating our website. Marketing is a passion of mine and I am lucky enough to have a career pursuing that passion. I also have years of experience and marketing training in this field. For more information about me please see the “Professional Biography” page.

What’s to come?

Check back the week of June 20^th to learn more about how search engine optimization, search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine strategies can benefit you and your company!

Check back the week of July 4th to learn more about the basic principles of metrics and how to analyze website traffic using web analytic tools and why these are essential to your online marketing success!