Key SEO Terms
We know this might be a new language for our customers, so here’s a list of key terms that are used frequently when discussing SEO and SEM:
SEO (search engine optimization) – the process of refining the content on a website so search engines can properly understand (index) the contents and provide the contents of a website to search engine users.
SEM (search engine marketing) – the process of planning and implementing a marketing campaign designed to drive customers to a webpage through organic search results.
Organic Search Results – the results displayed by a search engine due to the relevance of the keywords used. These are not advertisement results (see figure 1).
Figure 1 - Sample Google Results (click to enlarge)
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) - a form of advertising through search engines and other ad networks where ads are placed within search results, but separate from organic search results. For each time a potential customer clicks on the ad displayed, you are charged per instance. If a potential customer does not click, you are not charged.
Pay-Per-Impression (PPI) – a form of advertising through search engines and other ad networks where you pay every time a customer is exposed to your advertisement regardless of whether or not the customer actually clicks the ad. Typically these campaigns are billed per thousands of impressions and are therefore sometimes referred to as PPM where the “M” refers to the roman numeral for1,000.
CTR (click through rate) – the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times the ad was displayed. In other words, if your ad was displayed 100 times and one person clicked the ad, your CTR would be 1%.
