Importance of SEO and SEM Software for Small Businesses Growth

Search engine optimization (SEO). Search engine marketing (SEM). Is there a difference? And do real people really market to search engines?

If you’ve been in the SEO/SEM industry for any amount of time, you may have already rolled your eyes at the “market to search engines” question. Then again, it’s a valid question, particularly if coming from somebody who is new to the space.

Just so we’re on the same page here, let’s address the question, shall we?

First off, it’s not the search engines per se that marketers cater to. SEO and SEM are, in fact, a form of customer service, in as much as more and more people use the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others) to search for information, including reviews and expert opinion, about businesses, products and services prior to making a purchase or commitment.

All told, this type of marketing is bringing to people what they’re looking for through the search engines.

SEO and SEM – is there a difference?

Chelsea Adams, the Senior content writer of Bruce & Clay Inc has written an article about the eternal question: “Does SEM include SEO?”

She goes on to explain that when SEM was originally coined by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land in 2001, it was a term that included all forms of search engine marketing, paid or otherwise. Recently, however, SEM has come to mean paid search advertising, such as PPC (pay per click), CPC (cost per click), and geo-targeting, while SEO became more focused on the organic (or unpaid) side of search marketing.

So, yes, there’s a difference, but they don’t have to be mutually exclusive, as most online marketers would suggest, If you’re about to squeeze the maximum benefit from your search engine marketing campaigns, you need to be aware of every Tips to drive traffic.

SEO and SEM software – the advantages

Because search marketing is undoubtedly a vital component of online marketing, it’s no surprise that the market is teeming with various tools to simplify the process and make it more efficient.

Here are some of the known benefits of SEO/SEM software:

1. Better search marketing insight through analytics

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Whether or not you subscribe to this premise, the fact remains that analytics is an indispensable feature of SEO/SEM software. In the case of web traffic analytics software, like Google Analytics and SimilarWeb, you’re afforded a clear view into how your website is performing in terms of traffic: which pages get the most views, where your site visitors are coming from, which channels (e.g., social media, search, and display ads) are sending you the most traffic, even the keywords searchers use.

All these are information to help you understand if your SEO strategies are on point, which keywords to target in your next PPC/CPC bid, among others.

2. Brand awareness/visibility

Brand visibility isn’t something that freely falls from the skies. It’s a result of careful planning and strategizing, and a combination of a whole spectrum of marketing activities, including SEO and SEM. As Neil Patel from QuickSprout describes in his article ” How to Build Brand Awareness for Your Business ”, there is no hard-and-fast rule to building brand awareness, as “it varies from business to business.”

But as the number of Internet users continually rises, not taking advantage of various online marketing platforms to boost your brand’s visibility can be a costly mistake.

3. Increase in targeted traffic

Visibility into the results of your search engine marketing activities allows you to take the necessary mitigating actions when your website traffic objectives aren’t being met. While backlinks are no longer the only factors to achieve optimum search engine ranking, backlink analyzers, such as Ahrefs and Open Site Explorer, help spruce up a site’s link profile by evaluating the quality of a link, anchor text variance and usage, total links versus linking domains, among others.

These, plus the information provided by your traffic tool, afford you the knowledge to better optimize your site for search engine users, a task that can ultimately bring more traffic to your website.

4. Better conversion rates

There are two types of traffic: traffic and targeted traffic. People may come to your site through the keyword “women’s clothing.” However, if your site specifically caters to “clothing for pregnant women,” expect some of them to exit the site as soon as they find there’s nothing for them there.

With targeted traffic, your conversion rates have a better fighting chance, and software can help identify the keywords to match your SEO/SEM objectives.

5. Lower costs

Although there usually is some form of financial investment involved when using an SEO/SEM software, the ROI benefits are far greater than when you’re blindly strategizing your search marketing initiatives, not knowing whether any of your previous and current efforts work or not.

SEO and SEM software – some examples

We have created our Cloudswave Awards 2014 for the 10 Best SEO and SEM Software but here a few of them to check out right now :

1. Ahrefs is a website analysis toolset with features that include Site Explorer, Backlink Checker, Batch Analysis, Domain Comparison, and Crawl Reports.

2. Moz Analytics. A marketing analytics software that provides robust API for social influence and link data, Moz Analytics is an all-in-one tool offering marketing insights, custom reporting, and actionable recommendations for better performance.

3. SEO Toolkit. Microsoft’s SEO Toolkit helps hosting providers, web developers, and site administrators via recommendations to improve their websites’ relevance and search engine performance.

4. Screaming Frog SEO Spider. The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop tool that fetches key onsite page elements (links, images, CSS, apps, and scripts) for SEO analysis. The data is presented in tabular form and can be exported into Excel.

5. Link Prospector. Link Prospector helps marketers find quality link opportunities via niche directories, link pages, sponsorships, guest blogging, and more.

6. Monitor Backlinks. As its name suggests, Monitor Backlinks notifies SEO practitioners and marketers when their backlinks are removed, changed, or about to expire.

7. SEOprofiler offers a suite of SEO tools for keyword research, link building and management, competitive intelligence, and website audit.

For more options, check out Cloudswave’s collection of the best SEO and SEM tools, as rated by the experts.

Importance of SEO and SEM Software for Small Businesses Growth