Understandably there is a lot of confusion around the terms search engine marketing and search engine optimisation. The two terms are frequently interchanged with online marketing and internet marketing which just becomes more and more confusing.
Search engine marketing and optimisation are part of a comprehensive online or internet marketing plan. Directly targeting search engines, optimizing a website to rank highly in a search engine is indeed a key factor when marketing online. Search engines employ web crawlers, which is software which reviews and ranks websites, to determine which websites show up at the top of a search list. Despite all of the techniques available to market on the internet, showing up in a search list is still one of the most effective ways to bring quality traffic to your website.
Search engine optimisation deals specifically with improving your website's place in the search ranking. Every website wants to show up on the first page of the major search engines' search, results list, so there is stiff competition to get on the first page. Most customers will never need to scroll to the second page of a search list, because they will find what they need on the first page. So if your site does not make it onto the first page of search results, it may as well be on page 20. No one will ever see your listing.
Search engine marketing has two components, paid and unpaid, so anyone can optimize their website. If you have the budget you can hand your search engine optimization tasks to a reputable consulting firm and let them improve your search engine ranking. If you have a small advertising budget, you can do much of the work yourself and develop your website's search engine optimisation virtually for free.
There are numerous “how to” sites on the internet to help you put together a web site optimisation plan, or you can use the services of a consultant (eg SEO Sydney) to develop a good internet marketing plan for your site and then do the work to implement it yourself. Either way search engine optimisation is an integral part of your online marketing plan.