Simply stated, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website in order to be found for free on search engines like Google and Yahoo for a particular search term.
Internet marketing is a comprehensive marketing campaign and usually involves paid clicks (PPC). SEO can work great as an online marketing strategy but the two are not the same. Usually you need to pay in order to run an internet marketing campaign. For search engine organic results you don’t have to pay a thing (assuming the optimization work has been done).
Small business owners are confused about this issue. They think always they need to pay someone in order to rank high on Google search results. But most of them can have some qualified traffic to their website without running an Internet Marketing campaign and this is all about optimizing their website to be properly indexed by search engines. A couple of good trusted links will do a good job in allowing the search engines “know” that a website is important.
Can Internet marketing do much more than SEO? Yes it can, but it also costs money. Most small business owners do not have big budgets for advertising and don’t know enough about online marketing to trust it. This doesn’t mean they cannot have qualified traffic to their website.
To conclude, SEO brings free traffic to your website, Online Marketing brings paid traffic to your website.
Great post! Thanks for sharing! Will check your site regularly now.
Totally agree. Though doing both together can bring a huge benefit to any business.
The good thing about seo is that once it is achieved you can have traffic flowing for a long time at no cost.
Mike
Great post.
You can great benefits from doing both seo and sem together.
The good thing about seo is that once achieved you can recieve traffic for a long time for no cost.
Mike
i totally agree with you normally when I see people talking about search engine optimization, they lump it in with Internet marketing. SEP is not only the internet marketing but a technology to make your presence on web.
I tend to disagree with several aspects of this article.
1. SEO is a Internet Marketing Strategy. The fact that this process is able to be performed for free doesn’t mean it’s not Internet Marketing. Same thing goes for social media optimization. SMO is a huge Internet Marketing Strategy that is definitely free and widely used.
2. SEO is not necessarily free. Their are various companies currently who offer SEO services, including my own. The algorithms that generate rankings on search engines are highly complicated; therefore, to efficiently optimize a website their are many factors you need to consider.
3. Your definition for SEO in the article is somewhat misleading. You state “the process of optimizing a website in order to be found for free on Google and Yahoo for a particular search term.” Like explained before, SEO is not always free. The second incorrect part of this is you only stated Google and Yahoo. Does this mean only these two sites are used for SEO? Absolutely not. To be clear and distinct you should have instead said the following: a search engine website such as Google and Yahoo.
Sources:
B.B.A. in Digital Marketing
Chief Marketing Officer for Macro Design Group