Search Engines are a complex beast. Especially Google, since they are by far the king of search engines across the globe. So say a business or a blog like my own wants to drive more traffic and create more clicks on their website. How can they do this in an effective and measurable way you may ask? The answer is SEO and SEM.

To be more clear these terms stand for Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. The only subtle difference between the two practices is that SEM is powered through a paid advertising approach where as SEO is an organic growth approach. So an example of SEM would be to utilize a great service like Google AdWords where you can advertise on Google Search and pay per click on your site from the search engine’s page. Which is all backed up by metrics laid out in a convenient format.

Ont the other side of the spectrum SEO works to organically (for free) boost the results of a certain business up to the number one search result when you search for content similar to the given business. This is done through a multitude of techniques that is ever changing along with google’s search engine algorithms. Just a few examples are if the page is craw-able by google’s “spiders”, if there are other websites that have links to yours to add credibility to your page, and if their are quality keywords in the content of a site that relates to a persons search words.

To start simply I looked at some keywords that I thought relate to my blog that may be relevant to people search terms. The five that I came up with were tech, tech news, tech blog, trending tech, and Adobe Apps. They seem really random because they were the first things that came to my head. However that is intentional because I was thinking of what I would like for my blog to naturally relate to for basic Google users searches. According to Googles AdWord’s Keyword tool each of these terms had a certain number of monthly searches on Google. This is how they stacked up:

  1. Tech – 201,000
  2. Trending Tech – 1,900
  3. Tech News – 201,000
  4. Adobe Apps – 8,100
  5. Tech Blog – 6,600

Knowing this information can be very valuable for use in SEO. This is because I can realize what phrases and search words are popular and I can incorporate into content to drive more relevance between my blog and Google users searches.

However, if I want to use SEM and utilize AdWord’s to the fullest I can use the keyword tool to find out the keywords that may trigger my Google search ad to appear next rto results. In my blog I have written about trending tech, such as when I write about new drones from DJI. During these blogs I have gone into detail about the phantom 3 drone. I have also written about the newer phantom 4 drone. Along this line of thought some of my recent blogs surround subjects like drones with cameras. Which can also be related to drones for sale.

All of these terms are Google AdWords suggested keywords that can trigger my ad to be placed next to search results barring these or similar terms are used. These terms have monthly searches numbering as listed.

  1. DJI – 1,000,000
  2. phantom 3 – 368,000
  3. phantom 4 – 550,000
  4. drones with cameras – 823,000
  5. drones for sale – 110,000

All in all SEO/SEM are tactics that should be utilized by any company with a website in  today’s modern day and age. Whether you have a budget to spend or not it is easy to get a very basic understanding of the search algorithm system and employ a beginner level of strategy to promote your business or brand!

Thanks for reading,

Evan LaVigne Twitter, LinkedIn