Understanding abbreviations in internet marketing is essential for navigating the digital landscape effectively. Key terms include SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which enhances website visibility in search engines; PPC (Pay-Per-Click), a model for online advertising where advertisers pay each time a user clicks on their ad; and CTR (Click-Through Rate), a metric indicating the percentage of users who click on an ad or link. Other important abbreviations include ROI (Return on Investment), measuring the profitability of marketing efforts, and CPC (Cost Per Click), which tracks advertising costs. Familiarity with these terms can enhance communication and strategy in marketing campaigns.
Transcription of Episode
Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Hey, there. Welcome to Marketing Chairside by Pro Impressions Marketing, where we talk to dentists just like you to help you solve problems in marketing. Marketing is something that’s very important to your practice. But sometimes because you’re not a marketing expert, you need some additional advice, and that’s where we come in. Today, I am joined by Jared Lowry. He is our director of account management. Hey, Jared.
Jared Lowry:
Hey, Jonathan. Thanks for having me.
Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Hey, thanks for being on and helping out. Today, we’re going to cover some of the jargon and acronyms of our industry in digital marketing because I know you deal with these terms day in and day out, and your job is really helping our team communicate with our clients in ways that’s easy to understand. We try not to throw a bunch of jargon at them. And so that’s why I wanted to have you on today, Jared. And I just figured there’s no better place to start than with SEO. Can you tell us a little bit about SEO and what that means?
Jared Lowry:
Yeah. So SEO is one of the big acronyms in digital marketing. And basically, what it stands for is search engine optimization, which has meant a few things over the years, and it’s been a changing landscape. So it’s a little bit of an umbrella term, like a lot of things we’ll be talking about. Basically, what we’re talking about when we’re talking about search engine optimization is where you’re ranking in organic searches. So when you do a search for dentist, St. Louis, where you’re showing up in that, in those search order, that’s SEO. And so typically, when we’re talking about SEO, we’re talking about technical SEO, which is going to be stuff that we’re doing on the backend of the website and the server just to improve the speed of the site, improve the user experience on the site, improve the mobile friendliness, all these different things that Google is looking at when they’re determining how to rank sites. Again, sometimes SEO is referring to something different. But usually, when you hear us referring to SEO, that’s what we’re talking about.
Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Yep. I mean, it used to be all about putting in these keywords and in specific orders or in specific amounts. And then they brought in link building because Google started looking at that. But even that was just so wrecked by people that I mean, nowadays SEO can mean so many different things to so many different people. Sometimes people use that term interchangeably with SEM. SEO and SEM, can you tell us a little bit about the difference there?
Jared Lowry:
Yeah. So again, SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEM stands for search engine marketing. So that’s what you’re doing, the marketing side of what you’re doing in order to be showing up in those results. A lot of times when people are talking about SEM, they’re talking about a paid component of it. So that’d be Google Ads and those things where you’re actually paying for the visibility there. That’s the big difference between SEO, which is a little bit broader, and SEM, which is talking specifically about the marketing component.
Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Right. And so the biggest concept in SEM is pay-per-click, and that’s where you might hear the phrase PPC, and that’s what it stands for, pay-per-click. And like Jared was saying, in SEO, we’re usually referring to the organic rankings where it’s not paid. It won’t say ad next to the listing. Whereas with pay-per-click, you usually will see it says ad right next to it. Or if it’s in social, sometimes it’ll say sponsored. But just in general, it means that money’s exchanging hands between the platform and the dental practice. And unfortunately, that’s really where things have moved a lot. Organic exposure is very hard to come by. And so especially on social media, it’s become a pay to play world where if you want to get visibility, you have to pay for it.
Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Google Ads are a little bit different because you are paying per click rather than paying for exposure, which on Facebook usually that’s the quid pro quo is that you’re paying just to have your content even seen. Whereas with Google Ads, it is still search engine marketing, meaning that people are typing in something. And we’re saying, “If someone types this in,” and let’s say that they’re in our city. You can target it to a fair degree of accuracy, not 100% degree of accuracy. But you can still say, “If they’re in my city and they type in some of these phrases, I want to show up and I’m willing to pay up to this many cents or this many dollars for those clicks.” And then every time someone clicks on your ad to visit your website, you’re paying Google a certain amount of money.
Jonathan Fashbaugh:
And usually, you set a budget that says, “I will pay up to this amount total every month.” Although Google recently, well, a little while ago changed it to being a daily budget. So you would say, “I want to spend up to $100 a day or $200 a day,” whatever it is, and then that is what controls how many clicks you can get just based on how much you have to pay. And how much you have to pay gets even more complicated because you’ve got other people competing for those clicks. And so we end up monitoring what’s called your cost-per-click pretty closely because… So we wanted to cover this specific acronym because it’s confusing. You’ve got PPC, but now you’ve got CPC, cost-per-click. Although to just make things even worse, CPC can sometimes be referred to as cost-per-conversion.
Jonathan Fashbaugh:
But usually, we describe that as cost-per-lead, meaning how many dollars total do you have to spend to make the phone ring or to get an email. But again, going back to that daily budget. If you’ve got $100 for your daily budget and it costs you $10 just to have someone click on your ad for dental implants or something like that, then you can only get 10 of those clicks in a day before Google says, “Okay. I guess it’s someone else’s turn to get the top spot.” So we monitor that cost-per-click, how much you’re paying per click on different ads, different keywords very closely. Because if you’ve got something that’s eating up a bunch of your budget and it’s not generating leads for you, then that’s something we want to cull from your list and say, “Why are we paying for these clicks? These people are not looking for us, obviously.”
Jonathan Fashbaugh:
And there’s obviously more that goes into it as well because we want to make sure that if people land on your website, they’re getting what they want and there’s a reason for them to call or email you. But that’s why PPC and cost-per-click is so important. And then these are just some related words that you’ll hear thrown around a lot in social media and in pay-per-click. So views are more akin to people watching a video that you’ve made. Impressions are just eyeballs on your ads, how many times people see your stuff. And then reach is a phrase coined by Facebook. It’s how many times or how many people that your posts or your ads reached.
Jonathan Fashbaugh:
So you can think of that as similar to views and impressions, but it just means that someone at the other end saw your ad. And then hits is an old school keyword or piece of digital marketing jargon. It just means that some asset from your website was requested by the user’s browser. And the reason why I even mention this is that if you’ve got someone talking about how many hits they’re going to get you, you want to run the other direction because that means that they’ve got either an old school way of thinking in terms of marketing or the things that they want to sell you are really an outdated strategy. Yeah, I don’t know. Jared, are there any other keywords that you think we ought to cover today?
Jared Lowry:
Not necessarily. But I will say just if all of this information goes way over your head, if it’s all too much, I know there’s a lot of information in a short amount of time, don’t feel bad. We have a lot of our clients who are very savvy in the marketing and digital space, and some who just want to focus on dentistry and let us do the marketing side of things. So the point of this video is just to clarify and demystify some of those terms, make them a little bit more accessible. But if you’re not interested in tracking your cost-per-conversion on your views and all that stuff, a lot of our clients just want to focus on what they’re good at and let us handle the stuff that’s behind the scenes. And so if you’re a dentist and that’s not your jam, that’s totally fine as well.
Jonathan Fashbaugh:
That’s right. I mean, feel free to give us a call. And we will be glad to run an analysis free charge of your website, your online visibility, your online reputation because all of it pulls together. And then we can also look at your ads and SEO at the same time. So thanks so much. Jared, thanks again for being on the show.
Jared Lowry:
Yeah. Thanks again for having me. It was fun.
Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Take care, everybody. We’ll see you next time. Until then, like, subscribe, give us the heart thing on Instagram. Whatever you’re watching this on, we appreciate you. And we’ll see you next time on Marketing Chairside.