Five Facts and Fallacies About Search Engine Marketing

Connectica • February 12, 2016 • SEO

Read Time: 3 minutes

Search Engine Marketing Myths Busted

SEM or search engine marketing has taken the digital world by storm. This term refers to marketing strategies that use knowledge of search engine results to engineer optimized online marketing. Some examples of this include on-page optimizing of your website, keeping your site up-to-date and relevant with regular blog articles, keyword targeting strategies, backlinking and citation building, and much, much more. Since the Internet is a relatively new marketing platform (in comparison to print and radio media), there are many misconceptions about this industry. This is why we at Connectica Inc., Florida search engine marketing specialists, are here to help you distinguish between fact and fallacy:

FACT: Algorithms control it all
SEM functions optimally on mathematical equations known as “algorithms”. This is a complicated calculation that uses many sub calculations to determine which results rank higher than others. Algorithms depend on digital “spiders” to gather the required information to rank pages, such as determine which pages are linked with each other and which pages are visited most often. Algorithms are constantly being updated, getting better and more complex and accurate, to keep up-to-date with latest trends in searches and to factor in for bad SEO and SEM practices that try to take advantage of the algorithms.

FALLACY: All and any SEM is good
Within the SEM world, there are good methods that are approved by search engine companies, and bad or deceptive SEO methods that search engines disprove of. White hat SEO generally means using methods that follow the guidelines set by search engine companies, such as making content accessible to “spiders” for search engine algorithms to track and appealing to searchers. Black hat SEO is deceptive in many ways such as that text will be hidden on a site or made the same color as its background so that it is not visible to a searcher but is crawlable by spiders and so it positively affects a site’s ranking. If companies are found to be using black hat methods, they are penalized and may have to pay penalties. Negative SEO techniques (bringing down your competition’s rankings instead of trying to improve your own) are also considered black hat.

FACT: Content is king
The key to becoming more visible lies in your content. Keywords are well, key – but they no longer play as big a part as they have in the past. It is better to focus on creating exceptional quality content that naturally incorporates keywords instead of creating content just to serve keyword production. Meta tags also pay a big role and are an advantage when keywords appear in them, but more importantly they should reflect what searchers should expect to find in the content. Having backlinks to your site on another, reputable website is also advantageous and the best way to do this is by creating content that people will want to read, share, and link to because it offers their clients valuable information.

FALLACY: It’s all about Social Media Marketing and online advertizing
You may have heard that SEO and SEM is dead or dying, and that Social Media Marketing (SMM) and online advertizing or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns are where you should invest all your time and money these days. While SMM and PPC are great ways to increase your reach, build your brand, and generate interest, they are only one part of a bigger picture. SEM results can be enhanced by making use of these other marketing tactics, however, research has proven time and again that people who reach your website through organic results (as a result of SEM) are turned into real leads and paying customers. Also, SEM will build-up your presence on the internet and will have a longer-lasting effect when compared to other online marketing strategies.

FACT: For best results, get onto page 1!
The first page of search results will get 75% of the clicks! And the best way to do that is by optimizing your website using white hat SEM techniques that take advantage of our knowledge of the current algorithms controlling search rankings, creating killer content that people will want to share, and also incorporating other online marketing techniques such as SMM and PPC to enhance your SEM results.

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