Marketing

What Are The Differences Between SEO and SEM?

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Differences Between SEO and SEM

SEO and SEM are not just the latest buzz words in online marketing.Both these concepts are an integral part of any digital marketing strategy.

Because in the world of digital marketing it’s not just about getting people to see your content through search engine marketing (SEM), it’s also about optimizing that content for search engines (SEO).

So, what makes search engine optimization and search engine marketing so important? Aren’t they basically the same thing? Let’s take a moment to find out…

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search engine optimization is the practice of positively affecting the online presence of a website using targeted keywords and phrases. When done correctly this will result in an organic increase in website traffic and a higher search ranking for your website on search engine results pages.

Benefits of Search Engine Optimization

  • A fully optimized will have the ability to organically increase you user traffic. This will also increase your website ranking on search engine results pages.
  • SEO makes a website more user-friendly. Your website will be easier to navigate because the content contains all the correct keywords, tags and descriptions. This improves the overall user experience.
  • Websites that appear high up on search engine rankings automatically gain a perceived level of trust and credibility among users.
  • SEO is cost effective because it’s constantly working to increase targeted website traffic organically.
  • SEO automatically improves the quality of your website. Because everything has its place, users will get to experience your content without being overwhelmed by a messy and complicated website set-up.

What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

Search engine marketing is the process of increasing your online presence, traffic and visibility on internet search engines by using unpaid (organic) and paid (PPC)marketing strategies. The reason behind this is, the higher you list on the SERPS the more traffic you attract because of internet user behavior.

Benefits of Search Engine Marketing

  • Search marketing is one of the most target ways to reach your ideal target market audience.
  • Designing a search engine marketing campaign pretty is quick and easy to do.
  • It’s measurable because it gives you instant feedback via Google ads in real time.
  • It increases brand awareness by generating relevant web traffic to your website.
  • By using paid marketing you’re essentially buying advertising space on search engine results pages. So your brand automatically appears on the first page of searches.

What’s The Difference?

While SEO and SEM both aim to increase search engine visibility, what makes them different is the fact that search engine optimization is part of search engine marketing. If you’re still a little confused, let’s break it down a little more.

How SEM and SEO work together…

In simple terms SEM is a marketing process. The primary goal of this complex process is to increase visibility on search engine results pages (and on social media too).

This visibility is obtained in two ways:

  1. By getting more organic (free) website traffic using SEO strategies.
  2. By getting more paid traffic using paid marketing strategies (like PPC).

Because search engine optimization often takes a while to create competitive rankings for your keywords, adding paid marketing to this process can help you eliminate that time lag. This is because paid marketing adverts will appear on your targeted platform (search engine results pages or social media platforms) as soon as they are live.

Final Thoughts…

Digital marketing professionals will tell you that the most successful type of marketing strategies are the ones that combine all their available resources. Brands that incorporate this into their digital marketing strategy will get the best results for all their efforts.

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