SEO Vs SEM: Here Is What Makes Them Different

A large majority of us are confused between SEO and SEM, as these terms are often used interchangeably in the world of digital marketing.

SEO that is ‘Search Engine Optimization’ will rank you organically in search engines while SEM that is ‘Search Engine Marketing’ is paid search wherein you can pay search engines for Ads on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

Let’s learn the terms one by one.

SEO Vs SEM: What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

“SEO is a subset of SEM”

SEO is a process of optimizing the website to make it rank organically in search engines. SEO will get you free traffic and your SERP rank won’t fall easily. SEO is a long process which takes time to show its results, however, SEO is the only sustainable way to rank higher in SERPS.

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SEO is mainly divided into:

• On-page SEO
• Off-page SEO

Let’s have a brief about ‘on-page’ and ‘off-page SEO’.

What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO is optimizing individual web pages’ content and structure.

On-page SEO consists of:

• Keyword research and writing title tags and meta tags according to relevant keywords and page content.

• Optimizing header tags

• Setting proper format for URLs

• Optimizing images and alt texts

• Writing SEO friendly web content with relevant keywords for each web pages

• Interlinking and outbound links optimization

• Blog writing

• Boosting website speed

• Social media integration on web pages

What is the off-page SEO?

Every website needs high-quality backlinks in order to increase its domain authority. Off-page SEO activities will drive good quality backlinks to your website. Off-page activities consist of:

• Blog posting on various blogging sites
• Guest posting
• Sharing content on social media
• Submitting links and social bookmarking

SEO Vs SEM: Here Is What Makes Them Different

Now, let’s take a brief look into SEM.

SEO Vs SEM: What is SEM (Search Engine Marketing)?

As mentioned above, SEO is a subset of SEM. So, SEM, along with SEO, consists of PPC and SMM.

SEM is internet marketing where websites are promoted on SERPs. SEM is also referred to as paid marketing. You can purchase ads on search engines by bidding on keywords for which you want your ad to appear. Thus, when a user searches for something using the keyword on search engines, your website’s ad will be displayed on the top of other organic results.

SEM is also been known by some additional terms which are:

• Cost Per Click (CPC)
• Paid Search Ads
• Paid Search Advertising

What is PPC (Pay per Click)?

PPC is the paid internet marketing wherein advertisers pay some amount each time when their ad is clicked. Through PPC you buys traffic for your website.

Through PPC advertising, you can target your potential audience and increase the chance of getting leads or making sale. You can set you PPC campaign through Google AdWords which is the paid search platform by Google. Google AdWords is most preferable for search marketers.

However, there are other paid search platforms like:

• Bing Ads
• Yahoo Search Ads

Let’s see how it works.

Step 1: Make an account on a paid search platform like Google AdWords.

Step 2: Create an Ad campaign and specify the duration for ad, geographical audience, etc

Step 3: Create an Ad group with target keywords

Step 4: Write an Ad copy that is relevant and attractive

Step 5: Set Ad budget and start the campaign.

Follow these 5 steps and you are ready to have your ad campaign that’ll drive you good traffic.

Conclusion:

SEO is a part of SEM!

SEO will drive organic results to help your website rank higher on search engines. However, it is a slow process that reflect results after a period of time. On the other hand, SEM will immediately rank your website on SERPs as long as you are investing in keywords based ads.