SEO vs. SEM – What are The Differences & Common Points
You've probably heard about SEO, which refers to search engine optimization, but do you know what is SEM?
SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing for and it's a technique that more and more online business site owners are using to market their business.
However, although webmasters are in close contact with both terms daily, most of them still cannot understand SEO or SEM, and they have no idea of their commonalities and their differences.
SEO and SEM - Differences & Common Points
In this article You will understand the differences between SEO and SEM And I hope you can learn new techniques and put them into your practice after reading.
What Is Search Engine Optimization
SEO is Search Engine Optimization is a technique which is used to ensure that the website is on top of the Google search engine result and get free organic traffic to any particular website. Search engine robots can easily discover an optimized sit and as a result, the site will be more likely to find itself in a good position on the SERP.
This method aims to optimize the site so that it can best meet the requirements of search engine algorithms. A well referenced site is necessarily well optimized.
What Key Components Does SEO Contain?
Search Engine Optimization contains two important components :-
On-Page Optimization includes
- Include keywords into your website’s title tag, meta descriptions, heading tags, alt text (not over stuffed).
- All the written blog posts and pages must be optimized.
- All ULRs must be in good format – not include capital words, not include numbers or special characters, not too much lengthy.
- You website should load fast within 3 sec.
- Social sharing addition within your all content either it is blog or service page.
- And much more to do!
Off-Page Optimization includes
- Create website authority with the help of high quality backlinks which are naturally linked to your website.
- Social Bookmarking in top reputed website i.e. Tumblr, Reddit, plurk.com etc.
- Guest posting (post content in other’s website).
- Create your business listing in local listing sites.
- Ask questions and answer on Quora.
- Post your business classifieds where you can sell anything whether it is service or any product.
Search engines keep their algorithms secret but we know that they analyse more than 200 parameters to classify a website. Among these classification criteria, there are four that are particularly important:
- The quality of the hosting (loading time of the web pages)
- Published content (quality, relevance, freshness, diversity)
- Awareness (number of incoming links from other relevant sites)
- The behavior of Internet users (length of visit, number of pages viewed, bounce rate).
- These four criteria induce many others. As a result, SEO focuses on optimizing the site for these four criteria, while also working on the underlying criteria.
What Is Search Engine Marketing
SEM (search engine marketing) on the other hand is a technique that includes the various activities that aim to increase the visibility of a website, including SEO. This technique is no longer limited to search engines, but opens up to social networks.
In terms of web communication, the terms Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and SEA (Search Engine Advertising) are regularly opposed as two competing tactics of SEO. But it is much more of a complementarity participating in a global marketing strategy.
SEO + SEA = SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
In the SEM strategy one could even add the technique SMO (Social Media Optimization or Optimization on social media).
The SEM is a broader concept of website promotion, which encompasses SEO, as one of the tools needed to achieve results.
What Key Components Does SEM Contain?
SEM includes some tactics which are different from SEO organic tactics. SEM includes paid techniques which helps any keyword to rank in top SERP. These paid advertisement techniques also known as PPC which is refer to Pay Per Click as its name shows that you have to pay for per click in your ad shows on the google search result. These ads are run with the help of Google AdWords where you can optimize your ads and setting up your budget which depends on the keywords you have taken for your website.
Commonalities between SEO and SEM
Although different and related concepts, the only point shared by both SEO and SEM, is their purpose. As mentioned in the brief definition above, one can use SEO and SEM to drive traffic to websites. That's why many people attach importance to it.
What are The Main differences Between SEO And SEM
Although SEO and SEM are two similar terms, they have some differences that make them exist separately. In the following, we will list each aspect including methods, lifespan, costs, and time spent.
To understand the difference between SEO and SEM, one must start by analyzing a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). When a user searches on a search engine (Google, and others), they can access two types of search results. At the top and bottom of the SERP, it will find paying ads - or sponsored links - which are marked with a small green logo marked "ad". On the rest of the page, he can find different forms of organic or natural results (free ads).
The natural results are the result of the ranking performed by the secret algorithm of the search engines while the ads are the result of a bid game paid by advertisers.
Different Methods Of SEO and SEM
SEO and SEM use different methods to achieve the same result, generating more traffic. Usually, there are several ways to boost SEO:
- Create readable and rich content to rank well by search engines.
- Use SEO tools and services such as Google Webmaster Tool and Ping services.
- Analyze keywords
- Build more trackbacks through different methods
- Add social network icons to your site
All the mentioned solutions are also applicable for the SEM, the differences are in that search engine marketing can bring traffic by paid advertising and SEO bring traffic organically.
Once you have purchased the desired ads unit, the search engines give you an ad slot in the search results page. So, as long as people search for relevant items, your website may appear at the top of the results.
Lifetime Stability in SEO and SEM
If you are looking to improve the SEO of your site, then you can enjoy long term benefits With SEO Services in Delhi because you are creating a better and more complete website.
SEM is the opposite. As soon as you stop paying for advertising space, you will lose traffic, your visibility disappears completely and suddenly.
Costs of Both SEO and SEM techniques
You can improve the SEO of your site by promoting your content and improving detail points without spending a dime. However, because of the difference in model using the SEM, you have to pay for each link, it means that you have to pay the search engines every time people interested in your site click on the sponsored link which is mentioned above as PPC (Pay Per Click).
Time Difference Between SEO And SEM
Another difference between SEO and SEM is that SEO will take longer to get real results, while for SEM you will get almost instant results for keywords related to your ads and immediately increased traffic.
The search engine marketing can become a real money pit for small businesses, it is better to opt for SEO, free but profitable in the long run, if it is well done.
Conclusion
On the basis of the points above, you should have a clearer idea of the similarities and differences between SEO and SEM.
In fact, both methods have special merits, so the best way to generate more traffic to your sites is to combine both solutions if you have the necessary budget.
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Phew that’s SEO done!