subject: The Differences between SEO and SEM [print this page] The Differences between SEO and SEM The Differences between SEO and SEM
SEM is an acronym which stands for Search Engine Marketing and it means paying for advertisements to appear on the search page of
Google or any of the other search engines such as Bing.
Google did not invent this type of advertising but at this moment, 2010, is by far and away the most dominant player in this field to the tune of billions of dollars per year.
For many companies on the Internet SEM is a vital part of their marketing plan. Some companies and individuals spend millions of dollars on Google in order to drive traffic to their sites. They want the traffic to take a specific action on their sites such as buying a product or else signing up for a trial of their product.
The principal type of SEM ads which you will see will be blocks of text which appear on the right hand side and sometimes above the organic search results. They will contain one of more hyperlinks which the searcher can click on to take them to the advertisers site.
Google uses a system called CPC to charge for the ads. CPC stands for Cost Per Click. The advertisers only pays when someone clicks on the hyperlink in the ad. Because they appear in response to filling out a search query on Google the ads are extremely focused which makes them very effective.
SEO
SEO is another acronym, this time standing for Search Engine Optimisation. If the idea behind SEM is to drive traffic to your site from the first page of Google by buying the traffic then the idea behind SEO is in some ways the opposite. Drive traffic to your site from the first page of Google by not buying it.
Many companies believe that there is more credibility in achieving the top spots for the natural search result rather than paying to be included in an advertisement on the other side.
Research shows that organic listings get a higher click through rate than the advertisements. Studies have also shown that most people go no further than the first three pages in whatever search engine they are using at the time. Most search engines display 10 results per page so in order to get the maximum amount of traffic you realistically need to be in the top 30 results.
Taking these research results into account then your SEO effects should be to gain high, natural, search engine results. If possible in the first five places on the first page. After these top five places then traffic starts to fall off dramatically. There is a huge difference in traffic between the top five on page one and the top five of page three or four.
Sometimes this is not always realistic depending on your keywords so an ideal SEO campaign will target a variety of keywords and long tail keywords.
Combining SEO and SEM
Now that Google clearly labels all its' ads as paid advertising much of the stigma attached to using SEM has disappeared and many companies are finding it more viable and practical to combine their SEO and SEM effects where possible.
If you can use PPC in a cost effective fashion then it could be used as a valuable part of your SEO strategy. As a rather broad generalisation SEM advertisements have the ability to reinforce your high organic search position.
If a potential customer sees a paid advertisement and a search placing high in the search results then he is much more likely to click on one or the other.
The idea behind this could be that site has pertinent content which is why it is ranked so high and the company is financially solid because it has an advertising budget behind the paid campaign.
Also the paid campaign helps where it is not possible to achieve a top 5 organic search result.
The main suggestion behind combining SEO and SEM is to expose your potential customers to both organic and paid results to gain more traffic to your sites.
