If this is SEO, what is SEM

If this is SEO, what is SEM? Or UX? Or that other thing...

What about SEM? That’s “Search Engine Marketing” and isn’t that better for me than SEO?

Well, in my opinion, there’s very little difference. You’ll also hear people talk about Search Engine Marketing, Content Marketing, Social Marketing, Conversion Optimisation, and “UX” - short for “User eXperience” as if they are some sort of black art, a dark magic that only they truly understand. When they do this, they’re not telling you the whole truth - today you might not understand what these things are, but you don’t need to go to Hogwarts to change that.

All of the things in this list, ultimately, are just techniques aimed at doing one of two things:

1. Getting more people to your website.
2. Making the people on your website do something you want them to...

Oscar Wilde said that “there’s nothing new under the sun” and that’s certainly true of the Internet. There are no new things - just new ways to do the things we’re already doing, just better.

So, when we talk about SEO in this book, we're really going to be talking about a whole range of processes and techniques that can:

1. Get more people onto your website.
2. Make the people on your website do something you want them to.

and some of these will certainly cross into the worlds of SEM, Content Marketing, Social Marketing, Conversion Optimisation, UX etc. 

There's a very good reason that I called this an SEO book though - more people search for SEO than any of those other topics combined.

That's lesson one right there - find out what words and phrases your potential customers are searching for, and make sure you use the same language.

Nah, I’m good. I don’t think I need SEO...

Before we get into the main part of the book… I’m going to get something off my chest. I’ve honest-to-goodness heard people say “Oh, I don’t do SEO”  like that’s something to be proud of.

Here’s maybe the most important tip in this book…
it’s not something to be proud of.

In today’s 100% digital world saying that you “don’t do SEO” is the equivalent of saying “Oh, I leave my business completely to chance” or “Oh, I let my competitors steal my business all the time”.

It’s ridiculous.

Now, if you’re one of these people you probably aren’t even reading this book but… just in case… I’m going to give you a get out of jail free card.

SEO is changing.

In fact, it’s changing so much, so often, that that sentence is probably the only one that I won’t rewrite in the next edition of this book. And there will be a next edition, there has to be, because…

SEO is changing.

When I sat down to write this book, I didn’t want to use the phrase SEO because, in truth, optimising your website is about far more than optimising it for organic search. It’s about improving the user’s experience. It’s about making sure you provide a great online service, tightly integrated with a great offline service. It’s about protecting customers data. It’s about speed, reliability, compatibility, and accessibility.

It’s about every aspect of your business becoming digital and supporting your digital strategy - which, as the world is now completely digital should just be called “your strategy”.

But… that’s a lot to get on the cover of a book and most people, rightly or wrongly, still call this stuff “SEO”.

So, here it is, my “SEO Book” and lesson one is this - you need to do SEO.