SEO vs. SEM: The Difference and Which One Is the Best for You?

You must be familiar with the terms SEO and SEM, right? But, do you know what the difference is between them? Although they have the same goal of increasing organic traffic and ranking, the approaches they use are slightly different.

SEM is an optimisation strategy that includes two main practices, SEO and pay-per-click (PPC). When SEO drives organic traffic by optimising website performance on search engines, PPC uses an advertisement approach to get web traffic. 

Check out the article below for more explanation on SEO and SEM, the main differences and how each works!

What Is SEM?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a digital marketing strategy that aims to increase website visibility on search engines which accordingly drive traffic and conversion rate. SEM can be divided into two main categories, SEO and PPC.

SEO is a set of strategies to increase visibility by optimising all aspects of the website, and PPC (pay-per-click) uses programmatic advertising to increase website visibility. 

The position of PPC ads is different from other organic results, it is on the first list, commonly marked with "sponsored" where everyone can easily find and click it. 

The PPC system is similar to other paid advertising mechanisms where the advertiser makes content and then promotes it on search results by paying some money. But, specifically for link websites or articles on Google search, the payment is made only when the goals are met, i.e. there is a click.

The paid system on advertising PPC is bidding where the advertiser decides how much they are willing to pay to Google on each specific keyword or phrase that they want to appear on. So, the more clicks they get, the more cost they pay.

What Is SEO?

On the other side, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a part of the SEM strategy that is applied to make a website increase its organic visibility and ranking on search engine search result pages by optimizing all aspects related to the website. 

Because SEO is a very powerful method, it is essential to use it to ensure that your published content can be easily found and read by the audience. Also, if your goal is to sell the product, SEO can help you drive traffic from potential customers and increase sales. 

SEO can be categorised into four main aspects such as technical SEO, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and local SEO. Technical SEO involves overall optimisation efforts that are related to technical aspects like the architecture, linking, responsiveness, and loading speed of the site.

Another SEO category, on-page SEO, is about optimizing aspects that are within the website like content creation, keyword optimisation, meta title and description, and others. On the contrary, off page is optimisation practice to the aspect outside the website like building backlinks, brand mention, and listing.

The last category is local SEO, which focuses on increasing local presence and visibility, especially for businesses that have physical locations in specific areas.

SEO and SEM Differences

For organizations, brands, and businesses both SEO and SEM are very useful strategies to boost results. Because nowadays, everyone is doing a search when they want to go somewhere, find information, do something, and need to buy something. 

To achieve goals, SEO and SEM adopt different approaches. SEO is all about getting traffic and visibility by optimising websites with search engine algorithms. On the other hand, SEM uses paid advertising to drive traffic and visibility.

From the payment method, both SEO and SEM are of course very different. If we take a closer look, SEO is not completely free, but it's not directly paid by money either. SEO uses time and effort to optimise your website as the payment method. On the contrary, SEM uses PPC which requires payment for every click that you get. 

For the time it works, SEM is very effective in getting fast visibility and traffic. But remember, the benefit will be lost when the advertising contract expires. SEO takes more time and consistent effort, but the payoff is long-lasting and does not require additional cost.

Some new companies will choose the SEM strategies approach to build brand awareness because they want to immediately increase sales, while SEO optimisation companies that are well-known to the public will choose the organic traffic approach to build their visibility and long-term benefits.

How Does SEM Work?

SEM for PPC works in four main steps including keyword research, bid setting, ad creation and audience targeting. Keyword research is all about finding the right keywords for your needs. 

Different keywords have different costs based on factors like search volume, global volume and potential traffic. Long-tail keywords often come with a lower CPC price. 

Next, once you've got your targeted keyword, you can set up your bid. This is where you decide how much you're willing to pay for every click. This can be a bit of a tricky one, because if there are competitors that outbid you, Google will only show your ads less frequently than those competitors.

Of course, if you want your ads to get a lot of clicks you must create engaging and useful ads. It's important to make sure that the content you create is of a high quality and relevant to what your target audience needs. Google will give your ads a quality score based on how relevant and useful your content is.

Once you've completed the other steps, you can set up your audience targeting. This lets you focus your ads on specific groups of people. You can target your ads based on factors like age, gender, location, or interests.

How Does SEO Work?

Search engines define their success by providing users with information that is most relevant to user intent. Google uses a machine learning algorithm that looks at over 200 ranking factors to help it decide what website ranks.

Some of the ranking factors that often make a big difference when it comes to making SEO strategies include:

• Keyword optimisation.
• High-quality content.
• User Experience.
• Schema markup.
• Core web vitals.
• Mobile-friendliness.
• Backlink.
• Internal linking.

SEO involves continuously optimising about overall aspects of a website including keyword research, on-page optimisation, off-page optimisation, and technical optimisation. 

Begin with keyword research, on SEO this step is about understanding the word or phrase your target audience type when searching. You can choose the most relevant keyword with low competency but high search volume.

Next, on-page SEO can be optimised by creating high-quality content that is related to the keyword you are targeting. You also need to make well-structured content with engaging titles, descriptions, and optimized images.

Different from on-page SEO, off-page SEO focuses on improving website credibility and authority by collaborating with other parties and building backlinks. The last step is optimising the technical aspects of your website, like mobile-friendliness, internal linking, loading speed, and others.

SEO works directly on your website to make it have a maximum performance to be ranked in search engines and get a high position.

Conclusion

Basically, both SEO and SEM strategies have a positive impact on the performance of your website. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. 

If your company needs brand awareness and traffic in a short time, you can use an SEM strategy, but if your company wants to build a sustainable strategy with a very minimal budget, then SEO may be the best option.

If you're running an SEO strategy for your business and facing some hurdles, you can partner with SEO Services by cmlabs. As an SEO optimization companies, we can help you create an SEO strategy that aligns with your business needs and goals. Contact our marketing team today for a free consultation!