SEM: Making Sense of It All

Online marketing is undoubtedly one of the fastest growing industries and the best method of gaining unlimited exposure for your business. But if you are going to be a successful online marketer, you need to know what you are talking about. We’ve compiled a glossary of terms to help you gain momentum:

ADSENSE - Google’s pay per click advertising scheme. Google pays you when someone clicks on the ads that have been placed on your site.

ADWORDS – Google’s brand of Pay Per Click advertising that shows up on the right side of its page results when searching corresponding keywords. Adwords may also be distributed to many other web sites that relate to the keywords you have bid on.

BACK LINK - One way links from an web page or link that take people back to your website

KEYWORDS – Words or phrase that are entered into a search engine to find what people are looking for on the Internet.

META TAGS - Part of HTML code that contains various information that the site owner wants the search engine spiders to see.

ORGANIC – The “natural way” of generating links and content, as opposed to “paid for” link generation.

PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC)- An advertising method that makes use of search engines, websites and network traffic. A user clicks on an ad, which directs them to a particular site. In each instance, the advertiser pays for the “click”.

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM) - The art and science of marketing your website to search engines. This encompasses a variety of strategies and processes, including Article Marketing, Web Video Marketing SEO, and PPC programs.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) - The practice of making a website more “visible” to search engines by applying the proper keyword density to each page of the site and adjusting file, image and page names to relate to keywords.

SOCIAL NETWORKING – The marketing practice of using popular networking site to promote yourself, your company, your products or website.

VIRAL MARKETING – The marketing practice of people marketing you by sending your message, video site address etc, along to their friends via email, or my mentioning you in forums, chat rooms and blogs.