You’ve probably heard your SEO company talking about SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing), but what are they? Aren’t they one and the same? This is a question that many people have and one which is worth taking a deeper look at.
What’s the difference between SEM and SEO?
Both of these are ways to market your website in search engines. Therefore, you can consider both to be SEM. However, the main difference between these two terms is that SEO’s focus is on getting traffic for your website from organic search, whereas SEM utilizes both organic and paid search. While this is the simple answer that an SEO company will give to this question, there’s actually much more involved here.
What is SEO?
SEO is the process of trying to rank your website in search engines so that you can get organic traffic to your website. There are four main steps involved here:
- Keyword research: This is where you look for keywords to use in your marketing. These are the words that people use when they’re looking for something in search engines.
- On-page SEO: This is where you create content around your keywords so that visitors can find you. One of the best examples of this is creating a blog.
- Off-page SEO: This is where you work with other websites to build up your own authority and trust. For instance, you’ll want to get backlinks because in doing so, not only will you get more traffic, but the other website will be stating that they “endorse” you. The best way to do this is through guest posting on other sites’ blogs.
- Technical SEO: This is used to ensure that the search engines can find, crawl, and index your website. Any SEO company will tell you that your website is unlikely to rank if the search engine’s bot can’t do all three of these things.
What is SEM?
SEM is the process by which you drive traffic from search engines to your website. This is something that can be done through both organic and paid results. This is where PPC marketing comes in.
PPC (pay-per-click) marketing is where you pay popular platforms, such as Google, to send you web traffic. Your SEO company will help you with the four steps that are involved here, which include:
- Keyword research: In the same way that you’d conduct keyword research for SEO, you must do the same thing for PPC marketing.
- Setting your bid: This is where you’ll need to take a close look at your marketing budget to determine how much you want to pay each time someone clicks on your link.
- Audience targeting: You’ll want to know who your ideal customer is. This is something that your SEO company can help you with since you’ll need to come up with some precise demographics here to ensure that your money isn’t being wasted by targeting the wrong people.
- Ad creation: You’ll need a compelling ad that’s relevant to what the person is searching for. The ad’s job is to entice this person to click through and visit your website.
How do you get help with SEO and SEM Marketing?
Now that you have an understanding of SEO vs. SEM, you’re ready to talk to your SEO company about marketing your website. At the Local SEO Tampa Company in Tampa, FL, we want to make sure that you understand what we’re doing with your site because it is, after all, your site. So, if you’re tired of dealing with other companies who leave you in the dark, get in touch with us today.