It started out to be a great day. I had planned to take Jacob to his first circus. I bought the seats down front, went to the pre-show so he could see the animals and acts up close, bought him his $12 bag of cotton candy (insane!) and we were ready to have a great time. The pre-show ended, the lights dimmed, and we went to our seats.

The show started and mayhem began. There were clowns, animals, motorcycles, lights and entertainers running all over the stage floor… which the size of a hockey rink. I was pretty entertained and Jacob seemed to be as well (since he had his cotton candy). There were so many acts to watch and they all had interesting talents. About 30 minutes into the show Jacob started to ask when we could leave. 5 minutes later, he asked again. 3 minutes later, he asked again. 1 minute later, again and again. I wondered why he wasn’t really enjoying the show and really couldn’t keep his eyes on the different entertainment. Then it dawned on me that what I had been discussing with myself (in my head) is the same reason that Jacob wasn’t really enjoying the show. There was WAY too much going on at once. The circus had NO focal point. Neither of us could really enjoy a specific act because we were too busy looking around to make sure we weren’t missing anything else.

The lack of focal point at the circus is the same issue we have in graphic design. Campaigns without a focal point lack interest and confuse viewers. This is the same thing I tell beginning graphic designers, as well as many of my clients that want to clutter up there page with information and text. Information overload on paper is just as bad as visual overload at the circus. We don’t know where to focus and rather than trying to work it out, we lose interest and move on. To follow my own advice here, I’m going to end this anecdote. Bottom line though…my advice to the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey is to drop it from a three ring circus to maybe just one ring.

In the simplest way possible, SEM and SEO are tools which website creators, especially those who are promoting and selling a certain service or product, use in order to gain a lot of exposure and better ranking for their website. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, the simplicity ends there.

To make it a tad bit complex, SEM and SEO are not the same. As suggested by the names, SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, deals more with how a website is marketed to gain exposure in the different search engines available on the internet, while SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, deals with how the web creators develop and re-develop the content, quality and structure of their entire websites so that whenever an internet user types in a particular word in the search tab, their websites have a better chance of appearing on the first few search engine results pages (SERPS).

Now, to make it even more complex, although the functions of SEM and SEO seem different, they are more effective when used together. Since the main function of SEM is to gain more exposure for a website, the more common means for attraction are online advertisements, blogs, internet articles, partner and sponsored websites, and anything that can catch the eye of the internet user. SEM also makes use of PPC (pay-per-click) and paid inclusion to further push a website’s visibility. Lastly, it is also an important process in SEM to submit the name and URL of a website to different search engines and web directories if only to inform them of the website’s existence. All this is carried out to ensure the popularity of a website.

So how does SEO come together with SEM? Well, despite having all the advertisements provided by SEM, it is truly the SEO that allows the internet user to easily and conveniently find what he is looking for. Since the function of SEO is to gain a better ranking in the SERPS, the web creator has to constantly optimize his website in order to cater to the needs of the internet user and to make it easier for spiders or web crawlers to judge whether the website’s content is relevant to the word/s being searched. Optimization is not a simple and easy task. It involves having to restructure the website regularly (by editing the html code and meta tags, changing content, reorganizing the site map, developing an easier navigational structure, etc.) so as to adapt to the rapidly changing demands of the internet user. Still, when done properly, not only does SEO help a website become more useful and therefore, more often visited by the internet user, it also helps gain more exposure since it increases the website’s chances of gaining a better rank in the SERPS.

Both SEM and SEO success rely heavily on the words or context which Internet users type in whenever they search for something on the internet. Take PPC under SEM, for example. PPC is an ad that is triggered by a particular word or context used by an internet user. Once a particular word or context is searched, a corresponding PPC ad for a website comes out. SEO works in the same way. The web creator inputs a particular Meta tag (or keyword) in his html that he believes many internet users will use when searching for information, information which the web creator’s website may contain.

Although all of these processes involving SEM and SEO are tedious and time-consuming, it all boils down to knowing and serving the target audience. A web creator must be discerning enough to know what the internet users need and want, and at the same time he must have the real passion to inform and provide the internet users with the right service and product.

Search Engine Optimization San Diego

The never ending quest for web sites to rank higher and higher in search engine results pages has resulted in a corresponding development of entire careers that support this goal. For a number of years now, search engine marketing has been a viable career option for many thousands of people all over the world. In spite of its popularity however, there are many people who still do not know what search engine marketing is all about. Even those who have been doing it for many years may still not know all the techniques that make for highly effective search engine marketing.

If you are interested in starting a career in search engine marketing, or if you are already in the business and are looking for ways to increase and improve your current capabilities, there are a few things that you should keep in mind. The following tips will not only improve your web site’s presence in the various search engine results pages, they will also help make your web sites achieve a level of credibility that is so important in this age of bogus web sites that focus too much on search engine optimization at the expense of content. These are precisely the types of web pages will ultimately turn away the audiences that you are trying to draw in.

The most important thing that you should do is to make sure that your web sites conform to any standard requirements. Of all the millions of users on the Internet today, not everyone uses the same browser or even the same operating systems on their computers. Remember that search engine marketing is all about pulling in your audience and if your website cannot be viewed, that could be a potentially huge segment of your market that you are missing out on. The Internet audiences of today can be a very unforgiving lot, and if you cannot deliver the content that they seek when they need it, they will most likely just turn elsewhere. Make sure that every single image or block of text on your web site is viewable over a wide range of browsers and computer operating systems. The only way to do this is of course by testing them extensively before you place them online.

Stick to proven ethical techniques in your goal of attaining high search engine results page rankings. While utilizing methods such as link farms and keyword spamming will possibly get you favorable rankings at the outset, these techniques are frowned upon by search engines and your web sites will likely be booted off eventually. When you use traditional methods to get high search engine rankings, it may take much longer before you can see appreciable results-perhaps weeks or even months-but using them will give you the advantage of increasing your credibility and help give your web sites a reputation as a reliable authority in that particular field.

All the same, while traditional and time proven methods are the best way to go, you should also strive to keep updated on new techniques that keep your search engine marketing efforts current and competitive.

Spend a lot of time working on your copy. This aspect cannot be emphasized enough. Copy of course translates directly into content and that is after all what you are here to provide. For your particular target audience, make sure that you provide a number of different articles, all of them informative and relevant. Avoid resorting to fluff or content that relies heavily on keywords without offering much actual substance. A good rule of thumb is to have at least one 200 world article on each of your web site’s pages. This will give the various search engine spiders enough content to index.

It is important to choose a theme for your web site and stick to it. This means that every aspect of your web site should support the theme that you have chosen and reflect that theme adequately. This goes for elements such as your logo, your site design and even such things as color, which you may not have thought to focus on at all. Of course content is a key as we have already mentioned earlier, and the liberal use of effective and relevant keywords will go a long way in contributing to your web sites effectiveness.

Finally, the other side of the coin to your search engine marketing career is your client. At certain points in your career, you have to stop focusing on sales and acquiring new clients and instead keep your current client’s success in mind. Do everything you can possibly do in your power to help ensure the success of your clients and you just may end up building some long term business relationships in what will hopefully be a personally and financially rewarding search engine marketing career.

In terms of commerce, San Diego is a city that is one of the most diverse and active in the U.S., this in spite of it being located in a country with some of the largest business centers in the world. It is particularly strong in the areas of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, and there are many large companies of each type in the city.

As you can imagine, the competition between these companies is positively fierce. In order to remain competitive, there is a growing need to come up with new and more effective avenues of marketing, in addition to the more traditional methods of print, radio and television ads.

While these advertising methods have worked well in the past, the fast changing times necessitate a more modern and far reaching approach. More and more, the industry is seeing marketing approaches that focus heavily on Internet marketing, and advertising budgets have been adjusted to reflect this emerging trend. Clearly, what is needed is for San Diego based companies to create marketing plans that allow their websites to be easily found and accessed by all their potential customers.

Taking as an example the two industries we previously mentioned-biotechnology and pharmaceuticals-a quick search on any of the major Internet search engines will call up thousands upon thousands of pages or “hits”. This only serves to emphasize the important role that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can play in the growth of San Diego businesses.

In order to best utilize SEO in the service of your company, it may be useful to know how exactly it works. Quite simply, search engine spiders trawl through the thousands of web sites in order to find out what the specific purpose of each individual web site is, and upon determining that, these spiders add them to the search engine’s index. The search engines then choose the web sites with the most relevant and trustworthy content to add to their search engine results pages or SERPs.

This is the now widely recognizable listing that shows up when a user types a particular keyword phrase in the search engine’s “search” box. Web site owners who wish to draw in a healthy amount of traffic should make sure that their sites not only have a good amount of relevant keywords and keyword phrases, they must also know how to use them in the most effective and efficient way possible. One of the ways that they can do these things is by becoming thoroughly acquainted with the finer points of SEO.

Of course running a business is often a full time endeavor, and the various day to day tasks that such a position entails means there is very little-if any-time left for anything else. This is where SEO consultants come in. By hiring a suitably qualified consultant, owners of San Diego businesses can reap the benefits that SEO can impart to their companies without having to bother with the details themselves. A good consultant can help make sure that your business’s web site effectively utilizes important phrases and thereby make your web site’s purpose clear to search engines. The end result is that your web sites are more likely to receive favorable rankings in SERPs.

But that is only one half of the equation. Effective SEO also helps your business’s web site establish a “good relationship” with all the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. You will find out early on that trust is everything as far as these search engines are concerned, and building a reputation for relevance and good content will help your business immeasurably.

One of the primary means by which search engines establish a trust rating for your business’s web site is by keeping track of how it is perceived by other web sites. Search engine “bots” or specialized web site programs naturally have a more difficult time deciphering the quality of any particular web site, including your own.

Because of this, human input is still one of the most useful means by which spiders gauge a web site’s content, the idea being that if any actual human user links to your business’s web site, he or she must feel that it is worth linking to. With this in mind, SEO works on creating a link building strategy that will help your website gain the trust of hopefully all the major search engines.

A reputable company will have a team of highly experienced and thoroughly knowledgeable SEO professionals, along with all of the resources that will help your web site achieve the high search engine rankings that you need. Because it is important to use only ethical methods in the pursuit of these goals, a good company will closely conform to the guidelines that have been set by most major search engines.