SEO vs SEM

Being in digital marketing, you must have tried to learn about search marketing and got stuck in confusion between SEO and SEM. You might think, what SEO and SEM are? what is the difference between SEO and SEM? Do they have an impact? And more.

But, don’t worry. Have a cup of coffee and sit back. We are here with this blog to clear all of your doubts. 

About Search Marketing

To clear the confusion between the two, one needs to understand the basics of Search Marketing. 

Search marketing is a form of internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). This includes paid and unpaid techniques, from keyword research, content optimization to paid AdWords, pay-per-click, social media marketing, and more. Using these methods enables businesses to target various types of people interested in their products or services. 

There are basically two types of Search Marketing, which are: 

1. Search engine optimization (SEO) attempts to increase the number of visitors to the site by gaining a higher rank in organic or non-paid search results.
2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) attempts to increase the number of visitors to the site by gaining a higher rank in the sponsored links of the search results.

Let’s get deeper!

What Is SEO or Search Engine Optimization?

SEO is the process of increasing the online visibility of a website and increasing its ranks in the organic search results.

It is generally a non-paid way to rank your website and use organic techniques like keyword research, having top-notch content, optimizing it for different devices, etc. In short, it takes time and patience while SEO optimizing. 

Now, the four main pillars of SEO are:

• Technical SEO: Technical SEO is optimizing the overall structure of your website. It mainly focuses on the user-friendly design, privacy, and overall reliable experience of the website. 
• Content SEO: Content SEO is the most important aspect of ranking your domain. It focuses on the content, which should fulfill the users’ needs, be up to the mark, and be updated.
• On-page SEO: On-page SEO includes the context of your site that helps the search engines such as Google and Bing understand what your business is all about. It includes your tags, titles, images, etc.
• Off-page SEO: Off-page SEO is increasing the reputation of your website. It helps you get backlinks, links with other websites, managing profiles, directories, etc. Overall, it helps understand the search engines, that you are trustworthy, and help you rank higher.

What Is SEM or Search Engine Marketing?

SEM is a paid technique to higher your website’s ranks on SERPs(sometimes even before the organic search results) – utterly different from Search Engine Optimization. It includes the use of paid PPC platforms like Google Adwords to promote their websites. These techniques are all about keywords bidding, which means whenever a user searches for your keyword, your site’s name will be shown in the upper sections in the Search Results.

SEO Vs. SEM: What are the Similarities Between SEO and SEM?

Improves Search Visibility: 

Be it the organic SEO optimizing or using paid AdWords, the main goal of both of these techniques is to help you rank higher and increase visibility for the search engines. 

Drive Traffic: 

Again, both techniques cover the same target to help you increase engagement and drive more traffic to your website

Keyword Research: 

Be you are organically trying to rank or spending money to gain visibility, nothing can help you out if you don’t have the right keywords. Keywords help the search engines to understand, what your content is all about and whether it is matching the user’s query. Hence, in any strategy, you need to do use keyword research to drive the right audience in both SEO and SEM. 

Continuous Optimization and Updating: 

Be it SEO or SEM, you can never post your content and expect outcomes. You’ll always have to keep optimizing and updating your content for positive results. 

SEO Vs. SEM: What’s the difference between SEO and SEM?

SEM ranked websites come with an Ad mark, SEO don’t: 

While SEM optimizing your content, your websites will come up with a small Ad mark at the top of the results. In the case of SEO, no such ad marks appear. 

You pay on every click in SEM: 

If you SEO optimized your site and you have earned your rank in SERP, you never need to pay a buck for that. But, on the other hand, you’ll need to pay for every single click if you have been promoted through SEM.

SEO doesn’t promise instant results; SEM does: 

As already discussed before, you cannot rank overnight through SEO. It takes months to rank organically. But, in the case of SEM, you don’t need to wait to get ranked. As long you promote your websites through Adwords and maintain keywords bidding, you’ll get exactly what you’re looking for.

SEM helps you to show your content to your target audience; SEO doesn’t: 

You can even show your content only to the audience you want to show to in SEM. You can filter out unnecessary traffic based on their area, age, or any other criteria. But, the same never applies in the case of SEO. Everyone can easily see your content organically.

SEM is more reliable to test; SEO isn’t: 

You’ll always need to keep upgrading your content, test your landing pages, etc. And SEM actually makes it easier for the users to do the same. Obviously, it’s possible to do the same in SEO, but that’s not as smooth and reliable as SEM.

SEO adds value over time; SEM doesn’t: 

Your whole marketing campaign depends upon your ads. Once you stop paying for your ads, your visibility and reach will be gone. But, that’s not the same for SEO. Yes, it takes months to get higher rankings, but that will be a one-time investment. In fact, once you successfully rank through SEO, you can even get rankings above the SEM ads.

SEOs have much higher CTRs than SEM: 

Once you successfully rank your pages through SEO, you get a much higher CTR (Click-Through-Rate) than SEM. But keep in mind that the same never applies if you are on the lower portion of the SERP.