What is the difference between SEO and SEM?

SEO – Search engine optimization and SEM – Search engine marketing are two different marketing channels that business entities can use to reach their target audiences on search engines like Google and Bing.

SEO is an essential tactic for brands that want to drive organic website traffic and enhance their online visibility. SEO can be a tricky strategy to manage if you do not know how to gel it up with SEM.

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In fact both SEO and SEM sound like the same thing but in reality these are two very different approaches to becoming visible in the SERPs. The difference between the two is very simple to understand.

Difference between SEO and SEM

Before you can start planning out your strategic approach to improving the online visibility of your business, it is important that you understand the terminology used and what it is meant for. SEO and SEM are the two key areas in the search marketing acumen.

SEO – uses organic methods to appear in search results
SEM- uses paid methods to appear in search results.

The general thinking is SEO is related to organic search and SEM is paid.

What is SEO?

SEO is a process of optimizing your website for search engines. In a way it is an art of persuading the search engines to recommend your content to their users as the best solution to their issues. The SEO experts optimize your website by working through the four pillars that are-

1. Technical SEO: Technical SEO focuses on improving the technical structure of a website and looks at improving the site speed, mobile friendliness, crawlability, structured data, security and indexing.
2. On page SEO: On page SEO is all about optimizing factors on the web page that clearly help the search engines understand the content in context including things like title, H1, and meta tag optimization, image alt tags etc.
3. Content: Content is one of the Google’s main ranking factors and without great content that is authentic, engaging, information and that properly matches with the searcher intent will get ranks in the top SERPs spot. The content with robust strategy ropes in mammoth visitors.
4. Off-page SEO: Think of this as authority building, encompassing link building, encompassing link building and other tactics. This approach focuses on improving the trust worthiness and authority of a website in the eyes of search engines and its users by connecting it to other high authority and relevant sites. If the search engines see that users trust a website they will be more inclined to rank it in a higher position. This authority and trust come from link building, PR and other marketing strategies.

SEO experts perfectly blend all the aforesaid pillars and optimize your website for the top rankings.

What is SEM?

SEM is a strategy using paid tactics to gain search engine visibility. It is also known as PPC or Pay per click. As opposed to using tactics that help a website rank organically, SEM uses PPC advertising platforms like Google Ads, and Binge Ads to use the available ad formats to reach the target audience.

SEM involves everything from setting up and optimizing paid ads to managing the account to enhance conversions and returns.

It begins with a campaign with comprehensive keyword research and competitor insights to create targeted campaigns that place their products and services in front of target customers.

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When the users search for specific terms that advertiser is running ads against they will see a custom ad usually at the top of SERPs. Every time the ad is clicked by the visitor the business pays for this.

Benefits of SEM

While with SEO it takes months to see real results. With SEM you can be driving clicks and conversions in a very short period of time. In reality SEO and SEM are two sides of the same coin called digital marketing.

They should not be seen as channels in isolation and ideally should be seen as two parts of a larger digital strategy that drives visibility, traffic, and conversions from the search engines.

Similarities between SEO and SEM:

1. Both improve visibility of the website on the search engines and both will help your site to get positioned in the top rankings of the major SERPs via use of targeting and optimizing keywords.
2. Drive a higher amount of relevant and quality traffic to your site. Both strategies encourage users to click through the site.
3. Help one gain a deeper understanding of your audience.
4. Both the strategies require continuous monitoring and tweaking to be successful long term and deliver a robust ROI.

Difference between SEO and SEM:

1. SEM sees clearly marked adverts on SERPs and organic listing does not see this
2. Every single click or impression of SEM is paid for and nothing is to be paid when users clicks organic listing ranked due to SEO
3. SEM drives immediate results while SEO takes time
4. SEO continues to add value over time while as soon as you turn off SEM ads your visibility stops

Though SEO and SEM are totally different channels of marketing both are used together to drive success and gain a competitive edge.

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