SEO VS SEM – Everything You Need to Know

What is SEO?

SEO know as Search Engine Optimization is a process to optimize your website to rank in Search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. for the keywords that people are searching on these search engines.

What is SEM?

SEM know as Search Engine Marketing is a PPC (Pay Per Click) platform offered by search engines to show the ads on the top page pages of these search engines.

SEO & SEM similarities:

1. Both appear in the search results: SEO & SEM help your brand and business to appear in the top of the search results, when a customer or client search the keywords related to your product and services.
2. Drive Targeted traffic: Both SEO & SEM drive targeted traffic to your website while gaining the brand awareness and visibility.
3. Need Keywords: You need to choose best keywords to drive traffic and results for your business in both of them.
4. Need Regular Testing & Optimization: As digital marketers we should test different things to make our website better and optimize out meta and title tags in SEO and Title and Descriptions in PPC ads.

Difference between SEO & SEM:

1. There are some differences between SEO & SEM. So, let’s know about these differences to understand both clearly.
2. Cost: In SEM every click that you got on your website will be charged and in SEO there is no charges for the clicks that you receive on your website.
3. Visibility: In SEM ads are shown to the audience that you have selected. Means you can selected where you want to show your ads in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, but not in UP, Bihar, and Punjab. Then you can do it in PPC and other SEM ads. But, in SEO your results will be shown to all when you ranked for the keywords.
4. Results: In SEM ads traffic, you can drive traffic instantly means you can drive results instantly. But, in SEO it takes time because you need to do lot of hard work to rank on the page one of the Google and other search engines.
5. CTR aka Click Through Rate: SEO results has higher CTR than SEM results. CTR for the first page of search engine like Google is 35% for the SEM results and 65% on the SEO results.
6. Conversions: SEM marketing has more conversions than SEO. It has more than 50% conversion than SEO results.

What you should use for your business?

The best practice to use SEO & SEM is use both for your business. Because both of them has their own benefits, but here we are sharing when you can use SEO & PPC ads for your business.

SEO:

1. When you don’t have budget to invest: Many startup businesses don’t have that much budget to invest on ads and marketing. Then you can use SEO, because it will drive free and targeted traffic to your website.
2. Have time & skill: If you don’t want instant results then you can opt in for SEO or one most important thing that you need in SEO is skills, if you don’t have SEO skills then you can’t rank your website in search engines. You can hire SEO consultants and company to do all the hard-work for you.
3. Resources: If you want to rank in Google and other search engine then you need a lot of resources. Means case studies, pictures of projects done, clients testimonials, reviews, etc.
4. Your business has online authority: If your business is renowned and has it named in the online market then you can go for search engine optimization.
5. Low competition: It takes time to rank in search engines or if you have competitive keywords and competitive industry then it can takes years to rank well in the search engine.

SEM:

1. Have Budget: In SEM you need to have a budget to invest in your marketing and ads. Then you can achieve the results that you want for your business.
2. Need instant Results: In Search engine marketing you can drive targeted traffic from the same day of starting your ads on search engine, that can drive results, leads and sales for your business from the starting of your ads.
3. Don’t have resources: You don’t need to be an expert to run these ads. You can drive results for your business without having any prior clients, testimonials and other resources.
4. New Business: For new businesses it is really important to increase their brand awareness and build authority for their business. To build authority and increase your brand awareness for new business you can use search engine marketing.

High Competition: If you have a high competition in the market and it’s hard to rank for your industry keywords. Then you should invest your money in this marketing