SEO VS. SEM: DIFFERENCES AND TACTICS
WHETHER YOU HAVE AN ONLINE STORE, A BLOG OR AN INFORMATIONAL WEBSITE TO BUILD BRAND AWARENESS, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) AND SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM) HAVE A BIG IMPACT ON HOW POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS FIND YOUR WEBSITE. KNOWING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SEO + SEM ARE CRUCIAL IN SUCCESSFULLY IMPLEMENTING THESE TACTICS IN ANY DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY.
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM)
SEM: Paid strategy to appear in searches → A paid SEM strategy includes both the activities involved with setting up and optimizing ads. Your SEM strategy should include determining your goals, setting your budget, and setting up and optimizing ads. This is also known as pay-per-click (PPC).
Through the use of keyword research you can create campaigns that will target the ideal keywords (KWs) for your brand, service or product. These keywords will determine where you land on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) and you are then charged for each time a user clicks on your ad.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
SEO: Organic strategy to appear in searches engine optimization tactics → This is when you strategize by using free methods to increase your chances of appearing on search engine results pages (SERPs). You can use a variety of organic tactics in order to increase your chances of getting a higher ranking.
On page SEO: Through the use of keyword research you can integrate KWs into individual pages of your website. By optimizing the pages to relate to what people are searching at that time you become more likely to have a higher ranking!
Link Building: When you have valuable content on your website that is shared by other reputable brands and outlets this will let google know that you are also a highly desired reputable website, which will increase your chances of ranking on the SERPs! A blog is a great place to start.
Technical SEO: This is where the overall structure and foundation of your website come into play. By optimizing your sites load time, mobile capabilities, pages and navigation structure, indexing, photo files names, etc. you are showing Google that you have a reputable user-friendly site which will in turn increase your search ranking.
