Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing

• Search engines are Web-based programs that index the Web and allow people to find what they are looking for.

• Search engine optimization is the practice of improving the visibility of a Web site on search engines.

• Google is the leading player in the search engine market, with 67% of the global market share.

• When we talk “search,” we refer to two different kinds of results: organic search results and paid search results.

• Organic search results are the primary product of a search engine, while paid search results are influenced by financial payment.

• Search engine visibility promotes brand recognition and research has shown that search engine listings can stimulate brand recall by a three-to-one margin.

• People trust organic search results more than paid search results.

• Search engines use keywords to help users find the information they are looking for.

• People use search engines to lead them to Web sites.

• Search engines must list their results according to relevance and importance in order to attract and keep users.

• Web site owners, Webmasters, and online marketers want search engines to send traffic their way.

• Search engine marketing (SEM) has two parts: search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search (PPC).

• SEO aims to improve a Web site’s ranking in the natural search results.

• PPC advertising involves bidding for placement in the paid search results section of the SERP.

• Both SEO and PPC advertising are based around the same fundamental concept: keywords.

• Keywords are the key to making sense of all that we have learned about search engines.

• Google owns the largest share of the search market.

• Organic search results typically appear on the left-hand side, while the paid placement typically appears on the right.

• Search is important for a variety of reasons, including goal orientation and the three-way relationship among search engines, Webmasters, and users.

• SEO and PPC are two divisions of search engine marketing. PPC advertising involves bidding on desired keywords to achieve rankings in the paid results, while SEO aims to have a Web site rank in the natural results for its target keywords.

• Search engines are the doorway to the Internet and people trust organic search.

• Many users have a search engine as their browser home page.

• There is a three-way relationship among search engines, Webmasters, and users.

• Users want to find what they are looking for on the Internet.

• Search engines want to make money from selling advertising.

• Webmasters and online marketers want search engines to send traffic to their site.

• There are four main functions of a search engine: crawling the Web, indexing documents and pages, processing user queries, and returning ranked results.

• SEO + PPC = SEM.

• ticle/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization (accessed April 3, 2008).

“Technology Overview,” Google, http://www.google.com/technology(accessed April 3, 2008).