Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often regarded the same as SEM. It isn´t as SEO is but one activity within SEM. SEO is defined as designing your site (more precisely, a page of your site) in such a way that it comes up as close as possible to the top position of search engine results.

The advantage of on-page SEO is that the cost of acquiring a visitor goes down as you get more clicks from your efforts. The disadvantage is that there is no guarantee that you will maintain your position. Getting a high position for your keywords can be a long, tedious and expensive process. Search engines always change the ways they rank sites and each search engine has it´s own ideas of how to do so. You may be on the first page for a keyword in Yahoo but nowhere to be seen on Google or vice-versa for another keyword. Careful thought must be given to choosing the right keywords. If you decide to optimize for a certain keyword, you may get lots of poor quality traffic.

The major problem with on-page SEO is that you can only optimize for three or four keywords at most. There are likely very many more keywords that could be used but you simply can´t because only so many can fit on the page. Another problem is that you just don´t have control over how your listing appears. It largely depends on the exact keywords that were used. Your listing may appear somewhat different for "big round widget" than it will for "big blue widget", not to mention in vastly different positions.

That is one reason Lucid Web Marketing recommends complimenting SEO with pay-per-click (PPC).

PPC is another activity of SEM. PPC works by buying keywords and having your listing - an advertisement - displayed whenever someone uses those keywords. Only when someone clicks on your ads do you pay, hence pay for each click.

Many web site owners stay away from PPC for various reasons. There is the camp that says why pay when you can get clicks for free. However, remember that there is really is no such thing as free clicks. Even if you manage SEO yourself, there is the time expense to get the wanted results.

Another complaint we often hear is that PPC simply doesn´t work. They say nobody clicks on the ads or that those who do don´t buy. In our experience, those who tried PPC simply did not do it well. There is a reason nobody clicks on your ads. There is also a reason why they don´t buy.

Look at it this way. Typically, SEO will cost $500 per page per year if you choose a plan (a plan is recommended so that improvements can be made). If the number of searches for the chosen keywords per year is 100,000 (a fairly typical figure) and the percentage of people who click on your listing is 5% (again, typical for a position in the top ten), then each click will cost you $1.20 to acquire.

Pay-per-click costs can vary a lot and depends on the industry but you can normally buy them for a lot less than $1.20. You can also buy many more keywords than what is possible with SEO alone thus greatly improving your reach. If people don´t click, that means your ad is not appealing to the viewers and/or the keywords you chose are not relevant. If they click and don´t buy, your site is not convincing them that you have what they need.

Earlier, I talked about on-site SEO, the things you can do on your site to improve your search results. Conversely, there is off-site SEO. Most people in the industry don´t differentiate but they really should. It is two distinct and totally different activities. One you have lots of control over, the other you don´t.

The main type of off-site SEO is link building. Link building is getting other sites to link from their site to yours. Many believe that you can't get a high position without exchanging links with other sites. That however is simply not the case. It can help, especially for highly-searched keywords.

As with on-site SEO, there is a cost. After all, even if you do a link building campaign yourself, there is a cost of time which equates to a cost of money. You will find that not many other sites will exchange links. Those who do are usually not worth the trouble as they may be new or have very little traffic.

Link building is very time consuming. You must find and contact other sites with similar interest to yours and ask them to link to your site. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this. Most sites that allow links will ask you for a link back to their site, which is not always a good idea. This is especially true if you sell a product or service. Why risk sending a hard-earned visitor to another site that may buy from that site? It doesn´t make sense. It would be like going into Walmart and be told to give K-Mart a try.

Most link requests will be ignored. Savvy owners know it's not a good idea as I said above or are simply not interested. The best way to build links is naturally with your content. As other web site owners find you, they may find your blog or articles interesting enough to link to them. One day you may experience the thrill of a major site linking to one of your articles. Putting the time and effort into writing them makes that possibility worthwhile. Just make sure you have a linking policy and strategy which will help your SEO. This is a better long-term activity to link building than by asking for it.

Posting ads on classifieds sites is not considered SEM but just another advertising outlet. It can however be a good idea depending on your product. Many such as CraigsList are free but don´t forget the cost in time and effort that should not be ignored. The main problem is that they expire and you have to resubmit your ads all the time.