The difference between SEO and SEM (Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization) is a bit difficult to figure out.
Let’s discuss some basic differences between these two.
SEO is basically generating the volume of website visitors by making the website to appear on search results from various search engines. On the other hand, SEM is actually considered as a form of internet marketing that makes the scope of increasing the site’s visibility through organic search results and simultaneously by extensive advertising. SEM includes SEO along with other techniques applied for search marketing.
What Is SEO?
SEO is basically an essential component of a large group of web traffic generating techniques called SEM. Google Knowledge Graph defines it as search engine optimization is “the continuous process of generating bulk unique and returning visitors to a particular website by confirming that the website continues to appear in the search results of various search engines.”
The SEO industry is continuously changing its techniques mainly due to the frequent algorithm changes made by Google. Still, the main aspect of SEO stays unchanged and that part is made of On-Page and Off-Page activities.
The basic components of SEO.
SEO is divided into two components.
1. On-Page SEO :
- Implementing selective keywords into title tags, meta descriptions, heading, alt text, etc.
- Page content and Blog Posts that are written and optimized.
- Properly formatting and cleaning URLs
- Page load speed optimization
- Integrating with various search consoles and webmaster tools
- Integration of Social sharing option within the content etc.
2. Off-Page SEO
- Generating quality backlinks
- Classified listing
- Social bookmarking
- Web 2.0 submission etc.
What Is SEM?
“Search engine marketing is a form of Internet marketing that involved the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPS) through optimization and advertising.” (Source: Wikipedia)
SEM includes several other search marketing tactics besides SEO.
SEM Components?
Besides optimizing the search engines, SEM includes PPC listings and advertisements. It has been observed that most of the time SEM strictly includes only PPC campaigns, but if someone uses SEO and paid search together, that falls under SEM.
Main Difference Between SEO and SEM?
The main difference between SEO and SEM is that search engine optimization is only an essential component of search engine marketing.
Which Marketing process Is Better and more effective?
But there are situations where PPC makes more sense than organic SEO. When you are launching a website and it requires some quick traffic, it is indeed a good idea to start the PPC campaign as it yields result in very little time than organic SEO, but it is never recommended to use only PPC and ignore SEO.
Organic SEO takes a longer time to show the result, but it is less costly and it creates search credibility that you never will get with PPC.
