The magic equation: SEM = SEO + SEA + SMO
You've probably already heard of these acronyms, perhaps without even daring to ask what they mean. At least for the SEO, or natural referencing, which is the optimization of content for search engines (Search Engine Optimization).
Natural referencing includes a set of tools to improve the visibility and ranking of a website on search engine pages (the SERP: Search Engine Ranking Page, or search engine ranking page). Good SEO is done when a website, respectively a page, appears at the top of the first page of the search engine, for keywords referring to your main activity and your content.
You can improve the SEO of your website with various methods: it's called SEO naturalness or Organic. But you can also pay to be ranked first on Google (Don't tell me you're using Bing or Yandex, we know you're on Google). It's the SEA, to Search Engine Adverpression, or search engine advertising. Typically, you recognize paid ads with the small green [Ad] logo next to the URL link. How much does it cost? It depends on the payment method chosen: pay per click, auction, fixed price. Generally, your number one tool for SEA is Google Ads.
Finally, SEO optimization is not just about improving your website's SERP. Your social networks must also be optimized to improve your visibility and attract traffic to your website. It's the optimization of social networks (SMO — Social Media Optimization). It's important to reach your customers, engage with them, and share content.
And all together, these concepts give you the SEM — The Search Engine Marketing. It includes all activities aimed at improving the visibility of the pages of a website on search engines and on all social networks that can directly or indirectly influence the positioning of a page.
If you want to know more about SEO, feel free to read the article on The different SEO strategies we use.
Inbound or Outbound — Connections are important.
Les inbound links, also called Backlinks or Inbound Links, link to your website and pages from other sources (websites). This can help your SEO, but the link should be for qualitative and relevant content for your website. If they're coming from pages with a good SERP and SEO, that will help. If Google notices that links aren't relevant enough, it can damage your reputation and SEO: Google's algorithms are there to provide the best search experiences for users.
Les outgoing links (Outbound Links) leave from your website and point to external sites. You control them, but you run the risk of losing your customers by sending them to another site. However, depending on the content you create and share, they can be used as additional sources of information. And Google values it as well.
Don't just think about Google ads.
Also consider Facebook, Amazon, and other social media ad managers.
As already mentioned, to create ads and promote your website or products, you can use Google Ads to create pay-per-click campaigns (PPC: pay-per-click). PPC is the most used type of SEA model. For each click on your ads, you pay an amount calculated by Google based on various criteria.
But now you can also create ads on almost any social network. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, YouTube, and even Amazon, which provide software for ad management allowing you to reach your target customers more effectively and quite simply.
These ads are part of SEA's strategy and your reach will depend on your budget. How much are you ready to invest (spend) in ads and what results do you expect from them?
Retargeting and Remarketing — What's the difference?
In a previous article, we explained the importance of strategies for remarketing and retargeting to reduce your bounce rate (the proportion of visitors leaving your site after only visiting one page).
As a reminder, the Remarketing is a strategy that consists of contacting visitors to your website or subscribers to your email list with products or pages that interest them because they have already visited them before. The retargeting is generally used to target former visitors to your website with ads on various channels.
Google Analytics provides you with data to analyze the audience of your website, the pages visited, etc. Associated with Google Tag Manager, you can track a lot of valuable information about your visitors and their activities on your website. All this data will help you create a successful Google Ads campaign and improve your SEA.
In remarketing, the Facebook pixel is another important term that you may have already heard of. The Facebook pixel is the most famous, but you also have LinkedIn or Twitter tags, for example. It's a code to add to your website to track Facebook users who visit your website. It provides you with information to retarget each user based on the pages or articles visited.
You can be creative. There are a lot of different marketing strategies out there!
Finally, all of the terms and concepts we've explained here are mostly about digital marketing. Your creativity is the limit. There are a lot of different marketing strategies out there.
But the one you should remember is the content marketing (“content marketing”). It consists of broadcasting content that your audience is looking for. These can be blog posts, testimonials on your website, videos, etc. The aim is to make your brand more relevant and more visible by providing real value to your target users. Good content marketing can also really improve your SEO, if you do it right!
In recent years, we have seen the development of software to automate some repetitive tasks, ease the workload of marketers, increase efficiency, and reduce errors. THEmarketing automation is widely used withEmail marketing, but there are also other types of automation, such as chatbots, that were really in fashion lately. These are really effective automation solutions that are relatively easy to set up.
Digital marketing terms, tools, and technologies are changing rapidly. Thanks to Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Augmented/Virtual Reality technologies, marketing tools and strategies will continue to evolve over the next few years. So be curious, stay up to date... and we'll see what the next marketing trend is!
