My primary role as SEO Manager involves overseeing numerous sub domains, corporate sites and international sites. I have the fortunate opportunity to “manage” or assist in managing an SEM campaign for one of our sites.

It certainly  helps to have a basic comprehension of what PPC is, there are a lot of similarities with SEO. Chosing keywords and deciding that landing pages they land on certainly a critical and important aspect of any PPC campaign.

Now, we have Google Adwords Keyword tool, with actual volume in numbers instead of the ugly green bar. How simple can it be now? Google Ad Planner, although in beta form by invite only at this point, can provide a real clear look at demographic information for your site (I understand Google to be pulling this data from Google Toolbar – at least that’s the conclusion, when Danny Sullivan asked Google, their “google response” was that they didn’t want to share what their secret sauce was). Nice answer Google – why is this so top secret? Ok, I digress..

Managing SEM programs involves similar SEO traits: logic, clear understanding ofwords relevant to your site, writing good ad text – titles and descriptions- for obvious reasons along with a good eye for spotting good conversions, ROI, knowing what your cost per acquisition is. One other trait that is by far the most important is real honest experience. What might work for one vertical may not work for another, I know that’s pretty simple information, but it is true.

One of the best software applications to help manage your campaigns is the Google Adwords Editor, this is an application that lives on your computer, not web based. You can revise your ad text or keywords on a plane and when you land and get a connection simply upload this information to your adwords account.  Learning about Adwords? Go to Google’s learning center and watch some videos and take a quiz. If your really interested or serious in any way about becoming more professional – take the Adwords exam, which I understand makes taking the bar exam seem like child’s play.

I initially started this post wanting to share my PPC experiences – of which there are few at this point. Sifting through hundreds of keywords, defining the relevant from the irrelevant and high CPC from the negative keywords. I will continue to share more of my SEM experiences as the months go along.

Key SEO Takeaway—If you are managing the SEO portion of the site, and have another person managing the SEM campaign, you MUST sit with your SEM account manager and understand what keywords are being bid on? What must own keywords are proving to be way too high a CPC rate that you aren’t optimizing for in your SEO? Is Yahoo costing you a ton of money with good conversions? You might opt for a paid inclusion program for those keywords – get them at a lower cost. At the very least you should always know all data from the SEM portion of the program, not just looking at the SEO side of the equation.