SEO Hong Kong | HK Search Marketing and Optimization Blog

Just a quick post. Maybe you have come across people from search agencies who tell you “we do both SEO and SEM”. Sounds fine, right? Maybe, but if we dig deeper into the meaning of these acronyms, we could start asking what’s the difference between SEO and SEM.

First, let’s look at how I would define both terms:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
The use of various techniques to improve a web site’s natural ranking on search engines in order to attract more visitors.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
The process of marketing a website using search engines either through improving natural rankings or paying for clicks or both.

One interesting topic in web analytics is bounce rate. Bounce rate, is defined as the percentage of web site visitors who arrive at an entry page on your web site, then leave without visiting any other pages.

We can use this metric to measure engagement of visitors. The higher the bounce rate, the less engaging our site becomes. Sometimes I come to think that bounce rates are open to different interpretations. For example, a high bounce rate means users were not impressed on what they saw on the landing page and didn’t bother to explore. But it could also mean they immediately found what they were looking for on that landing page and is therefore unnecessary to go further. Or the site simply doesn’t provide avenues for the visitor to explore further (broken navigation links, no search function available, etc).

Even before the highly publicized news about Google’s bold plan to produce uncensored search results in China, its popularity in the mainland has been dwindling. This is according to iResearch, a local Chinese search consultancy firm.

In addition to Google losing search market share in mainland, Yahoo! and Bing also lost a certain portion of their slices in search popularity in China. Google had 18.9 per cent share of Web searches done in China in 2009, compared to 76 per cent enjoyed by Baidu. In terms of percentage points, Google’s share is down 1.8 per cent while Baidu gained 2.8 percentage points, iResearch said.

A survey made by Emarketer showed that the general trend from senior marketers worldwide is leaning towards “shallow” performance metrics when asked to evaluate which ones they are interested in measuring.

The survey referenced survey result sources from the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) in its 2010 Digital Marketing Outlook posted January 19, 2010. Marketers were asked which engagement metric was the most important among 1) Time on Site 2) Unique Page Views 3) Click-through rates 4) Page Views 5) CPM (Cost per Mille) and 6) Other (cost per click, conversion, ROI).

Overview
Google Analytics’ URL Builder is a tool that allows us to associate offline and online marketing initiatives into our Google Analytics reports. Using this tool enables us to scientifically pinpoint an under-performing or overachieving channels and help us make better business decisions.

For example, you have promoted your products listed on your website and decided to use print media like SCMP or Apple Daily, or outdoor billboard using POAD or JCDecaux with your product URL prominently placed on these ads. Now, when someone visits your product page, how do you know they are actually readers of SCMP or pedestrians passing by the bus stop billboard at Jardine House? By using URL Builder you can figure it out!