Search Engine Optimization (SEO) vs. Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

 

If you're like most people, you may have heard terms like SEO or SEM used when talking about marketing

strategy, but you're never quite sure exactly what they mean (and you might not even be so sure the person talking

about them knows either). What's the difference? How are they used? What can be done? If you're unsure about

all these foreign sounding phrases and terms, we're here to help you wade through the chaos and demystify the

puzzle of Search Engine Optimization vs Search Engine Marketing.

The first thing to do is to define Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing so you can get a basic

understanding of the terminology and just how they fit together.

"Search Engine Marketing" and "Search Engine Optimization" are both most commonly referred to by their

acronyms "SEM" and "SEO".

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a broad term referring to

marketing a website through search engines to give greater

visibility and page rank to the site. While SEM can certainly

incorporate marketing through organic methods (SEO), most

people associate SEM with paid search advertising, and

so this article will associate SEM with its paid advertising

strategies and SEO with organic ones.

Companies can spend anywhere from hundreds to millions

of dollars a month on paid search advertising.

There are many ways a company can practice SEM...

- Pay-per-click (PPC) (A budget is decided and cost is deducted per click on the ad. The cost per click is determined by the popularity of the targeted search phrase)

• Google AdWords - The largest advertising product online and accounts for over 90% of Google's revenue

• Yahoo Search Marketing

• Microsoft AdCenter

• Facebook and Twitter also offer various paid search options

- Banner Advertising (Buy banner space for a flat monthly fee)

- Cost-per-action (CPA) (Company buys ad sets guidelines for actions they want visitors to execute on their site and pay per completed action of visitor who arrived from the paid ad)

- Directory submission (Pay to have your website listed on online directories. Search engines like Google regard online directories highly)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the practice of building a website's search engine

visibility and page rank through unpaid (organic) methods.

The mathematical algorithms used by search engines vary,

according to the components that those search engines

determine are the most important. Additionally, each

search engine is constantly tweaking, changing and

updating their search engine algorithms to detect more

SPAM and content that does not meet its quality

standards. Search engines have become so adept at

pushing out content that is low quality that businesses are

now employing or hiring people to ensure that they have

content created on a frequent basis and of high enough

quality to meet search engine standards and avoid falling

on page ranks, or even worse, penalization. This is called content marketing. (That's what we do here at

DigitalSherpa!)

Trying to figure out the algorithms of various search engines is an entire science that in and of itself. Since the

search engine programmers will not reveal how they set up the algorithms. This ensures that only the highest

quality of content is delivered to you on the top search results pages. If the folks at Google revealed how they rank

pages, those with spam or artificial content might find their way on to your computer screen easier. (Have you

noticed how rarely you come across spam when clicking on Google results compared to five years ago?)

So how exactly does good SEO practice help you get ranked higher on those search engines? The right SEO

strategies will not only deliver the correct content to search engines, but will present it in a way that is attractive

and easily indexed by them for better page rank and faster rise up the search ladder.

In addition to writing great content, some (not all) important elements of SEO...

- Keywords

• People use phrases and keywords people use when searching the Web to help them find what they are

looking for. Keyword selection is the process of deciding what words and phrases to build your content

around and is an important process to a great SEO strategy as you want to direct your content to the most

qualified prospects.

- Link Building

• While not exactly simple in practice, link building is the simple theory of creating inbound links for your

website. This can be done by agreeing on link exchanges with other websites, making sure you have links

on social networking pages, creating content for other websites that link back to you, or simply sending

out e-mails that link to your website. There are a ton of ways to link to your website and create a more

attractive Web presence for search engines.

- Titles and Headers

• How you choose to describe your web pages and the sections of content on your web pages helps search

engines know what the page is about.

- Competitive Analysis

• What are your competitor's doing? What keywords are they targeting? How much content are they

developing and how is it performing?

You should notice a trend right now that SEO is all about delivering the right kind of copy in the right manner to

the search engines. Getting found online just isn't as simple as launching a website. Proper SEO takes real

expertise and time, but the rewards can be business-changing.

Which should you be using?

One of the most important decisions that a business

owner has to make is where to put your time, effort,

and, money. Creating a clear and concise set of

marketing goals is extremely important, as well as

determining what kind of ROI (return on

investment) to expect for your money. By utilizing

elements of Search Engine Marketing, you have the

opportunity to create a fast impact, increasing traffic

and sales, sometimes within minutes of setting up

your advertising campaign.

While this is an excellent short term strategy, often

it's not sustainable in the long term. It's sort of like

leasing a car or renting a house. You pay for the

time you're driving the car or living in the house,

however, in the long run you have nothing to show

for it. An additional downside of paid advertising is

that, depending on what niche you're competing in, often paid advertising can become extremely expensive, with a

return on investment minimal. And it's not just the cost of the ad campaigns that are expensive, but also the time

and expense to test the ads as well as creating the ads themselves. As the internet itself becomes more complex,

the marketing itself becomes more sophisticated, with constantly evolving elements that make it difficult to keep

up with the ever-evolving web which is one of the reasons why it's important to integrate SEO.

So, while it could be important to create an ongoing Search Engine Marketing program, many experts now believe

it's even more important to ensure that your website has its focus on high level SEO. Sure, allowing a website to

grow naturally after it's been optimized takes a longer amount of time, it also creates a more sustainable amount

of traffic to your site and delivers that traffic in the long-term, as opposed to when your paid advertising budget

runs out as is often the case with SEM. Unlike SEM, SEO is not something that can be turned on and off with the

flip of a PPC switch. Once the search engines rank your site high in the search engines, the traffic will start to flow

naturally -- organically.

Many businesses choose to consider a paid advertising program short term while they are in the infant stages of

building their SEO. The combined method will allow a site to get a jumpstart on increased traffic and sales, while

also building brand awareness, and creating a sustainability that is required in order to remain relevant within the

online community.

How To Get Started

Whatever marketing path you take for your business, it can be a challenge to find and hire someone who will do

the work that needs to be done and stay within a reasonable budget. In starting the search to hire someone to help

you market your site, it's important to verify the expertise and experience of the marketer.

It might be counter intuitive, but one of the first things to avoid are those people who promise huge, fantastic,

immediate results on a very small budget. The Internet is the largest marketplace in the world, so you will need to

hire a service that will fight for your presence on the Web and put in the hard work necessary to beat the

competition on search results pages.

Here are three questions I'd ask before I began to consider any Internet marketing service for my SEO or SEM

services...

1. What SEO and SEM mean to you and how each could affect my business?

2. What sort of work have you done? How have you delivered for your clients? (Marketing companies come a dime a dozen these days, make sure yours has a history of delivering to clients in a way that is sensible for you.)

3. How often will I expect to hear from you? How will you report our progress to me in a way that I will be

able to understand and evaluate?

It's a great idea for a business owner to understand Web discovery before he has conversations with marketing

companies about spending money with them. It's not necessarily important to understand each and every tiny

thing about it, but it could serve critical to know and understand at least the basics SEO and paid search

advertising so that you can make an informed decision about the direction to go and it will save time, effort,

money and you'll receive a much healthier return on your marketing investment.