What is search engine marketing (SEM)? What is search engine optimisation (SEO)? How do I promote my website? Do I have to outsource to a consultant or is that going to harm my site since they're all spammers anyway?

There is a lot of helpful information, as well as a lot of misinformation, floating around regarding search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). First of all, let's start with the names: SEO stands for search engine optimisation (or optimization if you're from the States). In its simplest form SEO is the process of tailoring a website (text, titles, meta tags, alt tags, etc) so that the search engines will assign a good rank to the site for specific search terms.

But with the advent of search engines introducing fees for guaranteed inclusion in their indices, directories charging for reviews and the emergence of PPC listings, SEO now has an element of media buying mixed in. Thus, thanks to Danny Sullivan, it has now been called search engine marketing or SEM (you can still call it SEO if you want).

The SEM Guide is meant to be both a tutorial and a general information resource. I am not selling or promoting anything (other than best practices). I have done SEO / SEM for 5 years and started this site as a way to organise my bookmarks and the information I had collected over the years. If you frequent other prominent SEM resources you'll find that this tutorial, like most search engine promotion sites, tends to go over the same ground. This is because THERE ARE NO SECRETS to successful search engine positioning - just experience, a lot of research and tons of hard work.

If you don't have the time to do it yourself get some expert help. But if you want to try your hand at promoting your own web site or you just want a better insight into how it should be done take the search engine marketing tutorial by following the steps.

The SEM Guide covers other subjects that are not included in the step-by-step tutorial so be sure to check out the side and top menus where every page of the site is listed. Now, on with the search engine marketing tutorial:

SEM GUIDE First Step: Do Your Market Research First

UPDATE 2007

I created this site in 2002, a lifetime ago as far as search engine marketing is concerned. Although the basics of content and optimisation still rings true today there are quite a few pages that are now outdated, specifically with regards to submitting to search engines. I have been meaning to give the site an update for ages but just haven't found the time so I have decided to start a blog for up to the minute search engine optimisation, online marketing and link building techniques. You're more than welcome to take the guided tour and the hard and fast rules still apply today as much as they did in 2003 but if you want the latest info head over to the Search Engine Marketing Blog. See you there!