SEM

So what is this SEM that I've mentioned on here? Well, looking around there's a link to something called SEMPO on the left, so clicking on that would give you a big clue. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. Still none the wiser? Well it's basically the art and science of getting your website listed as highly as possible on search engine results pages, so when you search in Google for widgets, my site www.widgetSuperstore.com shows up as the top, and the higher it is, the more chance that someone will click on it, and buy my widgets.

As those who know me know, I haven't been doing this for long, heck probably only really a few months, but I'm learning as I go, and the intention is to get the people of Lincoln Nebraska heading to alltellocal.com when they want to find any local businesses (the more SEO (Search Engine Optimized) version of the site is due to go up soon). How does this get done? Well there's 2 ways, one is called paid search, which involves us paying the search engines for placement on their results page, and every time someone clicks on a one of those links, we pay. The other way is SEO, this involves making the site as friendly to the search engines as possible, changing the text on the site, as well as the text beneath the surface.

Is it easy? Are there specfic rules as to what to do? No, if there were everyone would easily optimize their site to the max, and no-one would have any advantage. Instead there are guidelines, people who have experience and have tried different things post what works and what doesn't, and there's a fairly active community that's willing to offer help, and answer most questions. All I can say about it, is that it's going to be fun. It's a new direction for my career, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes :)