Many people ask what the difference between SEO and SEM. Some even go as far as comparing the two with SEO vs SEM with longform articles. The truth is, there is no difference between the two. In fact, search engine optimization falls under the search engine marketing umbrella.
While search engine optimization focuses on ranking a site for search engines through meta keywords SEO, SEO keyword research, and on-page optimization, search engine optimization goes beyond that. There are other ways to market a site in search engines such as social media marketing, influencer marketing, PPC, mobile optimization, and more.
When working with an SEO consultant, he should be able to supplement an answer similar to this. If he is trying hard to distinguish the two as if they were two completely different things, then he may not have enough knowledge about SEO.
No matter how many SEO leads he has, if he believes that SEO and SEM are different from each other, then he may not be the best for your business. In fact, he might only deter your business’ progress and instead leave a negative SEO impact.
You want an SEO consultant with an extensive know-how of the industry, its terms, and best practices. With the industry always changing every month (Google Algorithm updates anyone?), it’s important that your SEO consultant is up to date with the new and old terminologies.
If not, he may need to undergo training before he can perform an SEO campaign for your site.
The SEO industry is a rich source of SEO tools free that many professionals can take advantage of.
Be careful to not use tools that encourage black hat SEO. Spinning tools that produce hundreds of content in just a few seconds is an example of a black hat SEO tool. No matter how efficient or helpful a tool may be, if it encourages practices that goes against search engine rules, you should not support it.
When working with an SEO consultant, he should have at least some of these SEO tools free at his arsenal:
- Analytics tools
Free analytics tools like Google Analytics and Open Web Analytics lets your SEO consultant have a look at your site’s performance whether it’s how a user behaves on your site or what keywords your visitors uses before arriving at your site.
- Keyword research tools
These tools give your SEO consultant insight on what the most used keywords are and how competitive they are. Some of the best free keyword research tools are Google AdWords Keyword Planner, Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, and WordStream Keyword Tool.
- Link analysis tools
These tools let your SEO consultant analyze your link profile as well as help you locate sites that would be a great source to get links from. You can identify which sites are secure (https seo) and which ones aren’t. You also get a look at how well your competitors are doing and try to get links based on their backlink profile. Some reliable link analysis tools include Google Webmaster Central, Link Suggest Tool, and Xenu Link Sleuth and SEO hero.
An SEO toolbar is one of the most essential things your SEO consultant must have in his arsenal of software. It allows him to efficiently perform his task by showing all the information he needs to see in one toolbar.
Not all toolbars are the same. Some generate information as soon as you visit a webpage while others require manual data entry before it generates insights.
Whether it’s for SEO vs SEM or organic SEO, one thing is true, an SEO toolbar will make a world of a difference to your SEO consultant’s workflow.
Some of the more popular SEO toolbars shows data like PageRank, Page Authority, Domain Authority, links to domain, site age, monthly unique visitors, estimated traffic value, directory links, and more. This information is very valuable when it comes to SEO linkbuilding and competitor analysis.
If your SEO consultant has undergone SEO training, he should be able to utilize an SEO toolbar. If not, you may need to provide the training for him. Most tools provide their own course for how to use their tool. Some tools are also pretty self-explanatory and require no training at all.
Because each SEO toolbar serve a special purpose, it may not provide you data that is comprehensive enough for your needs. It is best to use at least 2-3 toolbars to supplement what one may be lacking. This gives you a better picture of your whole campaign and helps you make better informed decisions for your business.
An SEO spider refers to a tool that an SEO consultant would use when trying to crawl a site. Why it’s done could be for several purposes whether it’s discovering duplicate content, identifying broken links, analyzing page content, and more.
When trying to find an SEO consultant, “knows how to utilize SEO spider tool” should be in the SEO job description. It is one of the SEO best practices since it allows SEO professionals to make informed decisions about the campaign.
A popular spider tool used by many professionals is Screaming Frog. It’s a very comprehensive tool that lets you crawl a site extremely fast and show results in real time.
With a tool like Screaming Frog, your SEO consultant can generate XML site maps, review meta descriptions, find broken links, create a custom robots.txt, and more.
Once your SEO consultant has performed the basics of on-page SEO, he may move on to more sophisticated steps like Facebook SEO. This allows you to increase your presence on social media which is another ranking factor considered by search engines like Google.
Make sure to speak with your SEO consultant about the steps that he will take to help your site rank. Transparency is very important because it helps you understand why certain actions need to be performed. You also get to chime in based on your knowledge about your business. It is your business after all and no one knows it better than you do.
Before you hire an SEO consultant who has met all the requirements in your SEO job description, it’s important to know first whether he has existing SEO software at his arsenal. These tools allows him to perform his job smartly and efficiently. Considering that SEO is all about strategy, your SEO consultant should be utilizing tools that are highly useful. Below are just some SEO software that are very handy:
- Screaming Frog SEO
This tool allows you to crawl website URLS and analyze a website. From meta keywords SEO to blocked URLS, Screaming Frog SEO will tell you what it is in your site that needs to be fixed so you are better seen on search engines.
- Copyscape
Since you will be employing SEO copywriting services during your SEO campaign, it is important to know whether the content you’re receiving is original. Copyscape lets you know whether a piece of content is duplicated from the internet. If it is, it will tell you the percentage amount of the content that was copied from the original text. You want your SEO copywriting to not only be compelling but also 100% original so be sure that your potential SEO consultant has this tool.
- Google Analytics
Google Analytics lets you collect data that can be valuable for your business. Whether it’s the age and gender of your users or how they navigate your site. This is one of the basic most important tools your SEO consultant must have since it provides so much insightful data.