SEO vs SEM: Understanding the Differences

SEO and SEM are two powerhouse digital marketing strategies that dominate the internet today. While both aim to help websites become more visible on search engines, they operate using distinct mechanisms and get different results. Fully understanding the differences between SEO and SEM can better help you enhance your online presence, increase traffic to your website, attract more qualified leads, and ultimately, drive more conversions. This knowledge also informs decisions about resource allocation, and how to get the biggest return on your investment. And what’s more — having a clear grasp on SEO vs SEM makes it simpler to integrate the two strategies for a cohesive, unbeatable digital strategy. 

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization, more casually known as SEO, is the process of making strategic improvements to a website to amplify its visibility and get it closer to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). The main goal of SEO is to increase the amount of organic traffic — meaning traffic that does not come from paid ads — to a website. 

But it’s not just the quantity that matters; it’s also the quality of the web traffic. SEO can make your website more relevant and attractive to a search engine, which means that the search engine deems your website more likely to fully answer a user’s search query than other websites. 

There are many ways to convince a search engine that your website deserves a better ranking. The most successful SEO strategies will combine technical and creative elements that directly serve the user, aiming to make their experience on the website as painless as possible. When a site is fully optimized for the user, it signals to search engines that the site is credible, trustworthy, and has the answer to the problem the user is trying to solve. 

Key Components of SEO

1. Keyword Research

Keywords are terms and phrases people use when searching the internet for products, services, or answers to their problems. Businesses can identify and prioritize the most relevant keywords to effectively target the audience most likely to visit their site and potentially become customers.

2. On-Page Optimization

The easiest thing to control in SEO is the content and setup of your own website. On-page optimization might include changing page title tags, meta descriptions, headers, or other content to match your keyword strategy. 

3. UX (User Experience)

As a major ranking factor for SEO, UX often goes hand in hand with on-page optimization. UX improvements might look like rearranging information on a page, adding or removing buttons, or clarifying complex content for the audience. 

3. Backlinks & Off-Page SEO

A hyperlink on another website leading to your own is called a backlink. Since these exist outside the ecosystem of your website, it’s part of what’s called off-page SEO. For search engines, backlinks operate a bit like letters of recommendation. Getting a backlink from highly credible, established sites goes a long way in raising your own rankings. 

4. Content Creation

Using your keyword strategy, you can create articles, videos, landing pages, and more that align with your most relevant keywords and their search intent. Someone searching “SEO vs SEM” does not want to buy anything. They want to learn something. Whereas, someone who has typed “blue wool sweater” will want to buy. Giving people exactly what they are looking for is a core part of content strategy, and it increases the likelihood that they click on your website. As we’ve recently discovered, click rate is actually a ranking factor, so a higher click rate will mean a better ranking. 

5. Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the unsung hero of SEO strategy. If your site is not properly set up so that search engines can find, crawl, and index your content, you have no hope of ranking. 

What is SEM?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a strategy that aims to get more people to your website via search engines. A major type of SEM is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. With PPC, you place bids on specific keywords and only pay when someone clicks on your ad. This SEM strategy can get you instant results, which is an effective way to reach potential customers who are searching your products or services right that minute. 

Key Components of SEM

1. Ad Creation

Just because your ad might appear at the very top of an SERP doesn’t guarantee that someone will click on it. Your ad copy, format, and design will have a significant impact on how many people actually end up clicking on your ad. 

2. Bidding Strategies

There are a variety of bidding strategies — including manual, automated, and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) — and each will help you meet specific campaign goals. 

3. Managing Ad Placements & Targeting

The most successful ads will appear in the right place at the right time. Finding the right place requires a combination of choosing the right keywords, establishing geographic and demographic parameters, and steadily monitoring and adjusting your ad placements as results come in. 

Differences Between SEO and SEM

The main difference is that SEO strategies are centered only on increasing organic search results, while SEM strategies improve both organic and paid search results.

So, SEO is just one strategy you can do within SEM. 

Other differences include:

*Costs:

While you don’t pay for traffic with SEO, there may be costs from content creation/website optimization. The amount depends on your business goals, the size of your company, and whether or not you hire help. 

*Getting Results:

Getting significant results for SEO can take anywhere between 1 month to 3+ years. If you’re trying to rank for a local, non-competitive keyword, your results will come in faster than if you’re trying to rank for a broad, super competitive keyword. 

Results for SEM strategies like Google Ads will come in as soon as you start running the ads. The significance of your results will depend on if you set up your campaigns properly and the quality of your strategy (keywords, competition, bidding, ad creatives).

How to Choose Between SEO and SEM

Technically speaking, it’s not really a choice between the two. If you do SEO, you’re already doing one type of SEM. The actual choice lies in which SEM strategy you want to focus on. 

Depending on the size of your company, a factor you may need to consider is budget. Do you have enough money for the strategies you want to implement? If you want to run Google Ads, your expenses will include ad spend and campaign management (only if you outsource to an agency or specialists). If you just do SEO, you’re not paying for any clicks, which is why most people will say that it’s “free.” You will, however, be paying for content creation and management (whether in-house or outsourced). 

 If you have enough money to do all forms of SEM (SEO, PPC, display, local, etc), go ahead! 

If your budget is limited and you have to choose, consider your goals first. Do you need fast results? You could say that SEO is less expensive, but it takes a lot longer to achieve your goals. You’ll get faster results with paid strategies like Google Ads, but the upfront cost is heavier. 

Your industry might also be a deciding factor, as well as what you’re selling and where your target audience is. For example, we have a healthcare clinic client that hired us for SEO. In their case, it was a good idea to choose SEO because they plan to be around for a while, which gives them time to build up their online presence and work on their ranking. Their target audience is already on Google searching for their services, and the clinic has a physical location, making it possible to include Google Maps and Google My Business in our SEO strategy.

There are several situations in which it would be better to choose other SEM strategies instead of SEO:

• If you need immediate results
• If you’re a start up and haven’t established your brand yet — it can drive quick interest
• If you want to target specific audiences

Whichever strategy you end up choosing, just be sure you understand the strengths and limitations of each, and set clear goals and expectations for yourself.

Combining SEO with Other SEM Strategies

If you’re in a position where you can combine SEO and other SEM strategies, that’s a wonderful place to be. An integrated SEM approach can significantly enhance your digital marketing efforts. By leveraging both strategies, you can doubly increase your visibility on search engines, as your website can appear in both organic search results and paid ads. This dual presence maximizes your reach and ensures that you capture a broad spectrum of potential customers, including those who prefer organic listings and those who respond better to paid advertisements.

Combining SEO and other forms of SEM allows you to capture niche audiences more effectively. While SEO helps build long-term credibility and authority, other forms of SEM help you to target specific keywords and demographics with precision, getting your marketing messages across to the right people at the right time. No potential lead is left untapped, and you can tailor your approach to meet the diverse needs of your audience.

Finally, brand awareness naturally increases with visibility. As people get used to seeing your brand in their search results, they develop a recognition and trust in your business, leading them to click, visit, and potentially convert. 

Want to learn more about advanced marketing techniques? See what the experts at Make Your Mark have to say here in our blog.