What is Search Marketing?

Search marketing is the strategic development of content and information you provide online meant to bring visitors to your site and sell them on your products and services. While the SEO approach may or may not take pains to optimize web document content for marketing value, professional search marketers will always view these documents in light of your overall marketing strategy.

Search engines display parts of your meta data on their search results pages. Google, for instance, will typically show the title and description you've provided. The wise marketer knows this and views these two page elements as advertising copy. They are, however, advertising copy with certain "technical considerations". That is, they must contain the keywords or keyword phrases for which the page itself is supposed to be relevant.

Search Marketing and Search Engines Both Focus on Relevance

Search engines attempt to show the most relevant results based on search criteria. The idea is simple. If they deliver relevant and useful links for a search, the end user will use their service again. If they fail, the user may look for a different searrch engine.

Search marketing needs to create relevance in order to gain high listing positions with search engines, but must also create another kind of relevance for the end user. Web documents must deliver the marketing message - promotional material - while remaining on topic, and while meeting the expectations of the visitor. Visitors rightly expect information that serves their frame of reference, their motivation to search, and well formulated search marketing strategies account for these expectations.

Search Marketing and Search Engine Optimization

While Search Marketing includes optimizing pages for search, the considerations of SEO and SEM can be very different. Optimization is part of SEM, but SEM frequently goes much further into the field of marketing as it relates to the internet than does SEO. That distinction, however, is blurred where SEO providers are cognizant and capable search marketers themselves.

Caveat Emptor! is the rule here, because many SEO providers are highly skilled regarding the processes that get pages ranked well, yet have little - if any - experience with the science of marketing. This is so because many web design and web development companies have expanded to include SEO services. Those that paid their dues and got serious training in marketing should serve you well.

Larry Ludwig said it best in his article "Search Marketing and SEO in Contrast". Search Marketing deals with Psychology of the Sales Cycle, Search Engine Listing Advertising Copy, User Tracking, Conversion, Landing Page Split Tests and more.

Search Marketing Summary

Creating web documents that rank well with search engines and deliver an effective marketing message to end users - based on thier expectations - is the basic idea of search marketing. Search marketing naturally overlaps SEO processes, extending the effectiveness of gaining visibility by delivering a pointed marketing message.

As an aside, we've been asked - with ever increasing frequency - about the value of listing web sites with Internet direcories. We cover Link Popularity in our SEO processes discussion, but mention it in this overview for convenience.

Link popularity is simply the number and quality of incoming links you have. Directories can be good links to have - but only if the directories themelves have real value. You certainly don't want to ally yourself with spam pages, useless pages with unrelated content passed off as "directories" and so on. There are numerous, quality directories to which you could submit a link request. Some of them will expect you to provide links back to their sites, as do these below. For instance:
Add Your Link - Web Directory.
and:Add URL Directory.

Reciprocal links do not have the same value as a "one way" link to your site from a quality, related web page. Proliferating links by exchange is not recommended.

We may as well toss in a test: Corporate Insurance Solutions

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