SEO and SEM: Similarities and Differences

Introduction :

Search Engine Optimization [SEO] :

SEO is the process of optimizing your website for the purpose of getting free traffic from search engines. Traffic that is coming from SEO is referred to as organic traffic.

SEO is more important because the majority of the search engine traffic goes to top of the organic results. So, if you want to get more traffic from the search engines without paying for it, your website needs to appear in one of the top 5 positions.

The website which is optimized by SEO is easily understood by the search engine crawlers, and this increases the chances of ranking higher in SERPs.

SEO Variations :

1. Technical SEO :

This refers to the process of optimizing your website for the crawling and indexing phase. With this, you can ensure that search engines can crawl and index your page without any problems.

Main component :-

XML Sitemaps.
Canonical URLs.
Page speed.
Mobile Friendliness.
Site Structure.
Website Security.

2. On-Page SEO :

This will refer to the rules that you can apply to the individual pages and content so that it is optimized for the specific keywords.

Main components :

Page title optimization.
Meta description optimization.
H1 Tag optimization.
Content optimization.
URL optimization.
Image optimization. [trough ALT]

3. Off-Site SEO :

This is the process of getting references [backlinks] from other pages for the purpose of increasing the trust of your website in the search engines.

This may be confusing for beginners, but don’t give up. Try to think of it like a ranking system where the website which has the most references comes out on top. In this case, the references are the links that come from the other website to your site. Because of this, it is also called link-building.

To avoid this misunderstanding, it doesn’t matter only how many links you have pointed to your website but also from where they are coming from.

SEO task :

Keywords should be thoroughly researched before being used in the most appropriate places.
Content has to be written according to the needs of the visitors, content have to be written.
The web pages should be optimized to minimize the load time.
The navigation should be made simple yet intensive for the users.
Your backlinks should be built with high quality to your website from other domains.
To reduce bounce rate, visitors should be required to visit more pages and spend more time on the site.

Search Engine Marketing [SEM] :

In digital marketing, this process has a goal of increasing visibility in search engines either by getting organic traffic through the process of SEO or by getting paid traffic through the advertising of PPC.

SEO is a part of SEM, but SEM is a subset of Digital Marketing Company in Ahmedabad.

You can use digital marketing, which includes other channels to increase your website traffic besides SEO and SEM, such as social media marketing, email marketing, video marketing, and content marketing.

The importance of SEM traffic :

The traffic from SEM is considered the most important source of internet traffic because it is targeted.

People widely accept SEM for finding a solution to a problem, an answer to a question, or to learn how to do something.

While people click on the website from the search results or while clicking on an ad, they are easier to convert. The displayed website relevancy and ads make the SEM traffic more valuable than any other source of traffic.

Facebook and Twitter were trying to optimize those advertising platforms for utilizing targeted traffic, but still, traffic was coming directly from the search engines, which has a better ROI.

SEM tasks :

The ad campaign is launched with the intent of reaching a specific audience.
The ad group is then created, which has a target keyword.
Setting an ad budget SEM matrices are monitored for metrics such as clicks, impressions, click through rates, etc.

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN SEO AND SEM :

Both help in growing a website and improving the traffic on it.
Both help brands’ visibility in the search results.
The website owner should make easy usage of both of them for the audience.
Regular testing and proper optimization are required to stay on top.
SEO and SEM get targeted at more specific audiences for specific keywords.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SEO AND SEM:

SEO		SEM
1.	SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization	1.	SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing.
2.	It is the part of SEM.	2.	It is used for generation of traffic and is a superset of SEO.
3.	It will take time to give results.	3.	It gives immediate results.
4.	Very suitable for low-budget companies.	4.	Suitable for high budget companies.
5.	The click through rate of SEO is higher than SEM.	5.	The click through rate of SEM is lower than SEO.
6.	Potential of traffic is unlimited.	6.	Potential of traffic is limited depending upon the budget.
7.	It is inexpensive.	7.	It is expensive.
8.	It gives us long-term benefits.	8.	It gives us short-term benefits.
9.	Visibility of the site is improved by SEO.	9.	It improves the sales of a small scale business.
10.	Due to requirement of the organic content competition will be less.	10.	Competition will be higher in targeted areas.
11.	The search result of SEO will not target any audience.	11.	The search results targets the selected audience.
12.	SEO is the method used for maximizing the number of visitors of a website by ensuring the higher position of the site by optimizing the search.	12.	SEM is the online marketing technique which involves promotion of the website by increasing visibility of the site in SERPs with the help of optimization and advertising.
13.	Traffic volume is controllable.	13.	Traffic volume is obscure and long-term.
14.	SEO doesn’t include Ad designation, and search result of SEO have featured snippet.	14.	SEM includes the Ad designation, and search result of SEM has an Ad extension.
15.	The specialty of the SEO is to improve the visibility of the site.	15.	The specialty of the SEM can improve the sales of small scale business.
16.	SEO is not good service for testing your website.	16.	SEM is the good service for the testing of the website.
17	e.g., Backlink creation	17.	e.g., Google Ads

Conclusion :

SEM has two component- SEO and PPC. Since SEO is the part of SEM, so many of the people when referring to the SEM they mean the process of using the PPC ads for getting traffic from Search engines. SEM is the very important in digital marketing. If you want to create a long-lasting online business then you need both the SEM and digital marketing. PPC let you to get the result even faster but you should have to pay for the traffic, while SEO takes longer time for generating results and also it will require bigger investment.

SEM and SEO both are the process has a main aim in increasing the website visibility in the search engines for the purpose of getting highly targeted traffic.