SEM vs. SEO: What’s the Difference and Which Is Right for My Brand? - Part 1

Search optimization is an essential marketing strategy for brands trying to attract attention, drive website traffic, and grow their business. But search optimization can be a difficult strategy to manage if you don’t know how to compare SEM vs. SEO.

The tactics may sound the same, but they are two very different approaches to search optimization. If you use the terms SEM and SEO interchangeably and don’t know the differences between the two, you won’t be able to communicate a clear and effective strategy for improving your visibility in search.

You’ll also discover SEO and SEM basics and strategies that will help you improve your visibility and performance in search.

What is Search Marketing?

Before you can create a strategic search optimization strategy, you need to understand the terminology for this type of marketing. So let’s start at the top.

Search marketing relates to any tactic that helps a brand get attention by appearing on search engine results pages

(SERPs) . It includes efforts to get higher rankings and increase search visibility so you can drive more traffic to a website or specific webpages.

There are two major categories within search marketing:

• SEM, which uses PAID strategies to appear in search
• SEO, which uses ORGANIC strategies to appear in search

The main difference between SEM vs. SEO is that SEM is a paid strategy and SEO is an organic strategy.

Some marketers may consider SEM to be an umbrella term that includes both paid and organic strategies. But to make your marketing plan clear, we recommend breaking the terms into these distinct categories.

Because these terms can be interchangeable and mean different things to different marketers, always clarify the terminology before working with search partners. Discuss the definitions with your marketing partners to ensure that you are approaching the strategy with the same understanding.

What is SEM?

SEM, or search engine marketing, is often considered the part of search marketing that uses PAID tactics to gain visibility in SERPs.

A paid SEM strategy includes both the activities involved with setting up and optimizing ads as well as setting a budget that pays for the placement of ads.

This strategy is often referred to as paid search or pay-per-click (PPC) marketing.

Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords) is the search provider most commonly used for this strategy. With this tactic, brands conduct keyword research and create campaigns that target the best keywords for their industry, products, or services. When users search for those keywords, they see the custom ads at the top or bottom of SERPs. The brand is charged each time a user clicks on the ad.

What is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the part of search marketing that uses ORGANIC tactics to gain visibility in SERPs. With SEO, brands don’t pay for placement on SERPs. Instead, they use a variety of tactics that prompt search engines to show their content near the top of SERPs because the result is valuable and authoritative.

SEO includes hundreds of tactics that can help a brand increase their search rankings.

• On-page SEO optimizes each individual page of a website to target a specific keyword and appeal to search engines. These strategies include: keyword research, content creation, and keyword optimization. On-page optimization in SEO helps search engines understand a page of content and, therefore, give it higher ranks.
• Technical SEO optimizes the non-content elements of a website and the website as a whole to improve its backend structure and foundation. These strategies relate to: site speed, mobile friendliness, indexing, crawlability, site architecture, structured data, and security. Technical SEO improves both user and search crawler experience, which leads to higher search rankings.
• Off-page SEO builds a website’s reputation and authority by connecting it to other high-quality websites. Off-page SEO techniques include: link building from other websites and managing local listings and directory profiles. When many websites link to a brand’s website, it shows search engines that the brand’s website is trustworthy, reliable, and reputable, which increases its search rankings.

A strong SEO plan doesn’t focus on just one of these three types of SEO but instead combines all three strategies to produce the best results.

Source: https://blog.alexa.com/sem-vs-seo/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=blog-10-16-18-sem-vs-seo&utm_content=bp-sem-vs-seo&utm_campaign=content-visit

Read Part 2 of SEM vs. SEO: What’s the Difference and Which Is Right for My Brand?