So I figured I would share a little bit about myself in this post today. I am a Search Engine Marketer / Search Engine Optimizer / lots of other things.
Let’s start with Search Engine Marketing. That’s the simple (or most of the time simple) part of what I do. Have you ever done a Google / Yahoo / MSN search and seen the “Sponsored Results?” Well I do those. We advertise on a variety of different search engines, and I manage / help to manage each of our accounts. It really is interesting to see where people come from, what they search for, and then to see them make a purchase. We use tracking cookies (no personal information) to help us know which ads are performing up to our standards and which ones aren’t.
Recently we’ve been much more involved with our Pay Per Click program. You see, that’s why these are Sponsored Results. They aren’t free, that’s for sure! Every time someone clicks one of our ads, it costs us. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but it actually works pretty well for us.
The second part of my job, Search Engine Optimization, can be challenging, and that’s putting it nicely. Basically, the goal is to rank well in the different search engines for certain keyword phrases. (Those phrases will remain anonymous). This part can be extremely frustrating. Basically you learn as much as you can about how to design Search Engine friendly web sites and then you take that knowledge, put it to use, and see what happens from there. It’s not quite that simple, but that’s the basic gist of it.
The challenging part is that this environment is always changing. You never know if what you did 3 months ago is still acceptable today or not. Well that’s not entirely true, but the engines do change their rules sometimes, and for some people it has drastic consquences. We try to follow the design guidelines laid out mostly by Google. If you follow those rules, you should be pretty safe.
There are lots of techniques you can use to try to fool the engines into ranking you higher. The problem with taking this approach is that it can cost you dearly in the end. Especially once the engines catch on to the tactic you are using.
Playing it safe is my best bet when I give advice regarding search engines. I hope to post more on the site about some tips I’ve learned in my time at my job. I know that everyone “in the industry” already knows them, but I would like to have one place where people can receive good information.
So that’s what I do in a nutshell. I’m Search Engine Man, you could say. I never thought I would, but I love it.