Difference between Search Engine Positioning, Optimization, and Marketing

    Search engine positioning (SEP) can refer to a marketing strategy that a business employs in order for a business site to be ranked among the highest when Google, MSN, or Yahoo displays their search results. Search engine positioning may be different from SEO per se, because a website will be created to be structured specifically to target the desired position or rank that the company wants. In short, the site starts from scratch, and keywords, design elements, content, and everything else will be focused on getting search engine positions. Along with this, monitoring of the status of the website and the amount of search engine traffic is important.

    Search engine optimization employs also the same strategies that attempt to heighten the chances of getting better page ranks after Google, Yahoo, or MSN search results are displayed. SEO does additional techniques and makes use or timely research and the proper tools to accomplish the goals of a website. In a way, it can be said that search engine positioning is only one aspect of the overall goals of search engine optimization.

    In contrast, Search engine marketing (SEM) may mean the general strategy that includes both SEO, SEP, and other practices that aim to make products and services more sellable to the public using the search engines as channels to reach a larger market. SEM can actually be a service that search engine companies sell to the webmasters that want to rank higher on their results pages. Examples of top-rated SEM vendors, according to Search Engine Land (http://searchengineland.com) are Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter. Ask.com and Baidu also offer SEM services to their clients.