SEO is the free/organic efforts to improve the search engine rankings of a website for a specific keyword or set of keywords (being #1 on Google). The techniques used for SEO works on all search engines. The best technique being, creating SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.

SEO works through website optimization – the process of assigning or mapping keywords to specific pages on a website

SEM is the paid efforts to get traffic and visibility from both organic and paid search. The two different types of payments being: Pay per click and Cost per Mille (one thousand). PPC is a type of advertising where the advertiser pays per click and not the impression usually a bidding process (for search engines). This is measured by looking at the resulting CPC (cost per click)

CPM is an alternative to PPC and a type of advertising that is measured by looking at the # of impressions and the advertiser pays per 1,000 impressions. 

Need to be relevant, generate search traffic, low competition

• Relevance – which keywords are relevant for your site?
• Traffic – Do people actually search this keyword?
• Competition – how many big retailers are competing for your keyword

Optimization – the process of assigning or mapping keywords to specific pages on a website

• Broader keyword phrases for higher level pages like a home page
• More specific keyword phrases for lower level product pages

Offline keyword research

• Brainstorming
• Marketing collateral
• Customer surveys
• Listening to customers

Online Keyword research

• Google autocomplete
• Google Adwords
• Keyword Planner
• Google Trends

There are different components to optimizing a Website for SEO

• Meta Tags: Short pieces of text and descriptions of the content written in the code (HTML Document).
• Title Tags: 50 – 60 characters name of a web page in the tab of a browser that helps ensure your listing on search engine pages says the right thing about your business.
• Description Tags: 150 – 160 characters makes up the second part of listing and this is where you decipher between headings and text. Search engines look for headings to get an indication on the content and what the keywords are.
• Images and Alt Text / Tag: When you hover over an image and text pops up. Used by visually impaired to help read a website and search engines use alt text and file names to determine what an image is about
• Misc: Click through rates, bounce rates, loading times, good grammar and spelling, limited Ad space, original content

There are different components of linking that have different uses to drive traffic to a site

Link text: Text that appears on the page

• Link URL: destination to which the link will lead the user
• Internal links: linking within your own website from one content to another page
• Inbound link: link coming from another website and directs a user to your website
• Outbound link: link leading to another website
• Paid link: link coming from advertising Both inbound and internal links are important for search engines
• URL link: a link that is the actual URL
• Topic link: a descriptive link to link the user to a site that has a similar topic, e.g.
• Keyword link: link with keywords such as teas

Additionally there is: Link building, farming, social sharing, and building plans