
There are many targeting factors that come into play in this form of digital marketing. This signifies paid advertising, or search engine marketing, where a brand or business has paid Google to display their ads at the top of the page for that specific keyword. The top four results have a small green box that says “ad” underneath the primary title link. In the image to the left, you will see a search engine results page that is the result of typing the keyword “digital marketing” into Google. While SEO will help your website traffic increase through natural algorithmic means, SEM earns traffic through the process of purchasing ads on search engines. However, SEO typically refers to internal, organic website optimization while search engine marketing is commonly known as advertising through a paid media budget. Search engine marketing (SEM) is related to SEO in that they both deal with digital marketing outreach on search engines like Google and Bing. A Google SERP with paid search engine marketing results. Finally, other more nuanced factors like the regular posting of relevant content, effective metadata, and the correct alt-tags will provide a greater boost to your site’s performance related to SEO. Your website’s efficiency, architecture, and mobile optimization are other factors that are well-known to be critical in search engine optimization. You will then want to create engaging, original content for your various web pages that include these highly-searched keywords. Initially, you will want to perform keyword research to learn what phrases your customers are likely to type into search engines like Google. There are plenty of ways to improve your website’s SEO for improved organic digital marketing efforts. With effective SEO, your website will appear higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) due to its positive relationship to that search engine’s particular ranking algorithm. Search Engine Land defines SEO as “…the process of getting traffic from the ‘free,’ ‘organic,’ ‘editorial’ or ‘natural’ search results on search engines.” Essentially, SEO is the process of optimizing your website through various methods in order to rank higher for certain relevant keywords on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Below, we delve into SEO, SEM, SMM, which are the most popular commonly-used terms in our field today. Let’s face it: we use confusing jargon that very few outside our industry can understand. The Emergent Digital team has worked with those in the Nonprofit sector and have found a similar trend. Furthermore, the popular terms of the month can seem outdated in the next.ĭigital marketing terminology can be one of the greatest barriers to the industry for small business owners and marketing novices. What works today may be obsolete tomorrow. However, digital marketing trends are always changing. In the modern age, every online entity must have a digital marketing strategy to be competitive in the internet marketplace.

SMBs become massively successful corporations by harnessing the power of enterprise digital marketing. Small businesses use lean digital marketing strategies to grow their presence online and gain new customers.

Young entrepreneurs get into the digital marketing business as freelancers, writers, and web designers. The world of digital marketing is as complex as it is exciting. Digital Marketing 101: What is SEO, SEM, and SMM? The Difference Between the Most-Used Digital Marketing Acronyms
