Search Engine Marketing: The Basic Concepts, Key Terms and Glossary

Search Engine Marketing is the newest and the most popular form of marketing. To understand it fully, let us define the term. According to the Wikipedia Online Dictionary, Search Engine Marketing s a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of search engine optimization, paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. To do search engine marketing more effectively, you need to know the basic concepts, key words and glossary associated with it. Here is all what you need to know.

• Algorithm - the algorithm of a search engine determines the ranking of a page. One particular topic can be found on many pages. It is the algorithm that decides which one is more applicable for the term.
• Browser - a web browser is the most important tool for accessing the internet. Some of the most popular web browsers are Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, etc.
• Index - a database containing content for specific keywords, which are created by the search engine, is called an index.
• Keywords - keywords are those words which actually define your search. Keywords are very important in a website and webpage. These are the words or sentences, which are used by a searcher on a search engine to look for a specific topic. These are helpful in guiding the user towards the most relevant webpage.
• Pay Per Click - pay per click, also known as PPC, are advertisements on search engines. The advertiser pays only for the clicks that have been made on their ads.
• Ranking - the web pages are ranked according to their relative position on the Search Engine Result Pages. This process is called tanking.
• Search Engine Optimization - Search Engine Optimization can be defined as a technique, the main purpose of which is to improve the ranking of a website in the search engines.
• Search Engine Results Page - Search Engine Results Page displays the results of a search term.
• Spider - a spider is an application that scans different web pages from websites all over the world. It is useful in gathering information for search engines so as to be able to index them better.

These are the basic terms associated with Search Engine Marketing. This will help you understand the concept better and will also familiarize you with the process behind Search Engine Marketing.