Search engine marketing is a catch all concept. It’s also referred to as search engine positioning, ranking and promotion. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Advertising are two components within search engine marketing.

Search Engine Optimization is the process that a site goes through to make it visible and improve its “absorption” by search engines. A successful strategy will result in the site gaining targeted traffic from organic or natural search results.

The SEO process involves ongoing modifications to the existing site. These may include cleaner coding, development of additional site features, content development and where possible, development of a linking strategy. This is an ongoing cycle that includes statistic analysis, measurement and repeated adjustments.

Organic Search Results Sample – A search for “Multimedia Messaging system” in Google provided the following organic results. These are results based on the Google database.

Search Engine Advertising or Pay per Click (PPC) is the paid format of search engine marketing. In this case the search results are presented on the same page of results but are governed by a bidding (cost per click) and content matching system. In some cases these results are also displayed on network sites, for example the Overture (Yahoo) content network includes: CNN, MSN, AltaVista and Infospace.

Paid Search Results Sample – A search for “Application Performance Management” in Google provided the following paid results. Both the light Blue area at the top of the organic search results and the boxes on the Right hand side, are paid listings.