Calgary Web Designer Jenn Armour | Info Architecture + User Centric Web Design + Online Marketing + Social Media + Ideas

You can think of SEO as on-page jiggying.  Anything that is done on webpages in order to generate targetted traffic to those pages is optimization.  SEM on the other hand refers to any and all types of off page marketing efforts.  Search engine optimization is generally more technical and requires a deeper understanding of the different engines and algorithms.

SEM’s primary goal is to draw traffic.  Specific traffic. Some general ways this is accomplished is through:
 

• Traditional Ad’s (Pay Per Click)
• Pay-for-Inclusion
• Email marketing 
• Link exchanging

In dealing with small and medium business for over 6 years I am still surprised at the prevalence of search engine marketing mis-conceptions. Here are the top mis-conceptions:

1. People are going to find any website you build

Think of the Internet like a big phone book. A lot of businesses advertise in the phone book, but those that get noticed are those that have large advertisements and a lot of information. Just as you need to put a lot of thought and work into an advertisement in the phone book, you need to put a lot of thought and work into a website in order to get noticed.

Marketing your business online can be a tricky process. Small and medium sized businesses are learning that simply having a web site isn’t going to cut it. An insightful question to ponder is “why do we have a website?”

It is important to know what you want your web site to do. What are the primary objectives of your corporate web site. Answer’s to these questions become part of your online marketing strategy.