International Search Engine Marketing Blog

G. Chen, kindly contributed to the following post:

Let’s take a look at the SEO formula one step at a time to solve the equation that consistently riddles many marketers and web designers: what are the elements needed to effectively harness the power of SEM? One major element of SEM is content, as it has a strong relationship to effective advertising and the success of any campaign, whether international or local.

We know that SEO is an important part of SEM, and it is important to utilize the proper keywords in order to achieve the highest possible return on a search engine marketing investment. The SEO piece is relatively simple with a local site, which has a limited number of phrases that a marketer wants to target. After the marketer has selected the website’s keywords, obtained relevant links, and achieved the desired rankings in the search engines, that SEO component of a search engine marketing project simply needs maintenance.

All that said, marketers all too often fail during the keyword selection process. People are continually utilizing the search engines more and their search terms become more specific. Fewer people simply type “cell phone reviews,” but rather search for a more specific phrase such as “cell phones with international GSM coverage and G3 network.” More than ever, selecting keywords that consumer actually type into a search engine box is critical to driving targeted, quality traffic to a website.

However, keyword selection and the other pieces involved in SEO are only part of a SEM project. Although offline, a picture can paint a thousand words, this is not always true online. For example, graphic intensive sites may look impressive, keeping a simple design with the content a person is look for is crucial. Web designers and marketers alike must strike a careful balance between text and graphics in order to create a website that delivers a high return on investment,

Utilizing an effective mix of content and graphics allows marketers to obtain a higher ROI for their websites. While top search rankings are always important it is vital to remember that at the end of the day all the top rankings in the world are meaningless if visitors who reach a site leave it immediately. The right mix of content and graphics, combined with the careful placement of both, can lead to a truly effective search engine marketing campaign. Properly balancing these factors is ultimately what separates a SEO company from a SEM company.

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