The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success, 3rd Edition

What’s in It for You

Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are techniques by which you optimize your web pages, photos, blogs, social media profiles, and even videos to maximize search engine rankings. They are practices that almost everyone has heard of, but that few people understand. Search engine marketing requires implementing the optimization of your web pages and a keyword-sponsored link advertising program, or SEM. While SEO and SEM are two completely different functions, they are equally important; both refer to your website’s ability to be recognized by the major search engines. This chapter discusses search engine optimization.

More and more customers are searching on social media portals like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. When people are conducting an online search for the type of product or service you provide, they will use their favorite search engine—Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Bing, Ask, or some of the many others available today. They will type in one, two, or three words that they think best describe what you do, and hit Enter. How well you have completed your SEO will determine your position on the search engine results pages. If you did a good job, you will rank high—if not in the first position, then at least on the first page of results. Ensuring that your page appears on this first page, referred to as an organic listing or organic search, simply means that you are optimizing your web page(s) so you have the best ranking possible ...