That's a semantic quibble which I don't think adds a ton to the conversation. Besides that, it might just be WRONG. Just about every SEO professional I know would include copywriting, linkbait AND markup under the umbrella of SEO.
"Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.[1]. The industry peak body Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), also includes search engine optimization (SEO) within its reporting, but SEO is a separate discipline with most sources, including the New York Times defining SEM as 'the practice of buying paid search listings'.[2][3]"
Note: Not being snarky. I've been an online marketer and spoken on SEO. I think client education is important-- but we should focus on what's important and not the subtleties of acronyms.
My clients are usually more apt to talk about subtleties of acronyms than I. I'm glad you fought back a little though, you have a great point. I'd prefer to take the term SEO out back and have it shot, personally. I'm a bigger fan of findability, a la http://www.alistapart.com/articles/findabilityorphan/
From Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_marketing )
"Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.[1]. The industry peak body Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), also includes search engine optimization (SEO) within its reporting, but SEO is a separate discipline with most sources, including the New York Times defining SEM as 'the practice of buying paid search listings'.[2][3]"
http://is.gd/16x87 (GoogleFight! ;-) )
http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners-guide-to-search-engi... (intro to SEO article which talks about linkbait).
Note: Not being snarky. I've been an online marketer and spoken on SEO. I think client education is important-- but we should focus on what's important and not the subtleties of acronyms.