Chat #78 – SEO v. SEM

6 years ago

This is talk Number 12 in a series that will become the You are a media company course. This is the first of the 4 that I will speak about the SEO and why it’s important. Last chat, the blog and why it’s important. This chat, I will focus on the difference between SEO & SEM.

Definition of SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine result (according to MOZ).

Definition of SEM: Search engine marketing (SEM) is a type of internet-based marketing associated with the researching, submitting and positioning of a website within search engines to achieve maximum visibility and increase your share of paid and/or organic traffic referrals from search engines.SEM involves things such as search engine optimization (SEO), keyword research, competitive analysis, paid listings and other search engine services that will increase search traffic to your site. (according to Webopedia).

SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is the process of gaining website traffic by purchasing ads on search engines. (according to Search Engine Land)

Things to try to keep in mind about SEO & SEM – furthering the definition of SEO & SEM

Google is in the business of returning a good result so they take into account factors such as domain name, social interaction, on page like title tag, meta description, content on the page, trust of the domain, page speed, etc.) There are 100s of factors are taken into account.
Google is the leader in search results. Keep in mind YouTube is second. However Yahoo and Bing are also search engines
SEO is organic and generally SEM is defined ad paid advertising e.g. Google Adwords which was recently renamed to Google Ads.
Generally there are 3 ways to show up on the first page. The organic always shows up, Ads if there was payment and maps if there’s potentially local listing. There’s other variables that might show up but this is the traditional layout.
SEO is like a library organizing the internet.
SEO is not something you pay for. It is organic, you pay an agency to help you rank.