The Difference Between SEO and SEM

When talking about ways to promote a business or website, Pay-Per-Click(PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are some of the most popular ways to bring exposure online. However, let look at the differences between SEM and the SEO, as they both require different types of marketing and different types of businesses can benefit from the other more;

SEO

Those tactics and strategies that are used to make a website accessible to search engines and to improve a website chance of being found by a search engine is referred to as SEO. Every SEO strategy has a single-point goal i.e. to achieve high-ranking placements in the search results page of a search engine.

In order for search engine results to be organic, the results need to occur through the content of a website. The content is what allows the search engine algorithm to index. Some of the other factors the engine specialists are concerned with include page rank, keywords, link building, and one-way links.

The most beneficial way to boost SEO is by backlink. Through visiting blogs or forums, business owners may form a relationship and comment on related concerns. An individual can place his/her website URL, which allows for backlinks and increased SEO rankings.

SEM

SEM is using the Search Engines but in a different way. With SEM, you don’t have to re-write your website to make it fit with SEO practices and the like, you use the spaces on the different Search Engines in order to appear as a favored advertisement for the keywords chosen.

This means that you can bring in huge amounts of targeted traffic in a short space of time, and the budgets aren’t as heavy as the likes of PPC. This means that the budgets are usually fairly affordable, depending of course on what market you are competing in.

It offers the opportunity to build a short-term traffic burst while making long-term clients in the process. If you keep up the payments on your campaigns, it will continue to bring you, new clients. You just need to make sure you can sell the products to them efficiently – high traffic is useless with a poor sales copy and cheap website.

So what do you think is better for your business? Do you need a long-term strategy, or are you in need of something more rapid that can push you forward quicker against your competitors? You should discuss it with your Web Designer or any business partners you have, as it should be a serious part of your marketing campaigns, no matter what option you choose.