What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
The main difference between the two is that SEO focuses on optimizing a website with the goal of getting traffic from organic search results. The goal of SEM is to gain traffic and visibility through both organic and paid search.
Google's search results are divided into two categories: paid search results and organic search results.
Search Engine Page Results: Organic and Paid Results
The goal of SEO is to rank your website in organic search results.
SEO is about the act of ranking in organic search results
You can also have your website appear in the paid results area through pay-per-click (PPC).
Get your website ranked in paid results
SEO is where you focus 100% on ranking for organic results. And SEM is where you use SEO and PPC to get traffic from search engines.
Get traffic through paid and SEO
So, SEM is a broad term that includes SEO and PPC. That is, search engine optimization (SEO) belongs to the category of SEM.
SEO falls under the umbrella of SEM
Let's take a look at some of the key differences between SEM and SEO.
The difference between SEO and SEM 1: Main features
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Overview
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of continuously optimizing a website to rank in organic, free search engine results pages (serps).
Google uses over 200 ranking signals in their algorithm . SEO can be broken down into four main subcategories: on- page SEO , off-page SEO, technical SEO , and user experience signals .
On- page SEO : Optimizing your website around the keywords your target customers search for in Google, Bing, and other search engines.
One of the best practices for on-page SEO is to include your main keywords in title tags, meta descriptions , and web page URLs.
Optimize pages around keywords to rank
Off-page SEO : is all about gaining trust and authority from other websites. It mostly involves building high-quality backlinks to your website. But Google may also use other off-page signals to assess the authority of your site, such as EAT and social media shares.
E-A-T
Technical SEO : Make sure Google and other search engines can crawl and index all pages on your site with technical SEO.
Technical SEO also includes email list things like making sure pages load quickly. As well as building the right site structure.
An interconnected website structure can make pages easier to index by search engines
User Experience Signals : The way users interact with your website helps Google determine whether your page is suitable for searchers’ searches.
For example, if your page has a high bounce rate, it could be a sign that your page is not giving others the answer to their query. If Google thinks your page is not suitable for this keyword, they will lower your ranking.
Rank down
SEM overview
SEM is a broad term that includes SEO. So, the SEO stuff outlined above also applies to SEM. But in addition to SEO, SEM also includes PPC. PPC has its own features, operational practices, and more.
Bidding : Whether you're using Google Ads or Bing Ads, paid search advertising is all about bidding. In PPC, you bid on a specific keyword. When someone searches for this keyword, your ad will appear.
When you bid on keywords - your ad will appear in paid results
An ad's position is usually proportional to how much someone bids. So if you are the highest bidder, you will appear above other ads.
The higher the bid, the higher the ad position
When someone clicks on your ad, you pay the bid amount. This type of pay-per-click advertising is called pay-per-click (CPC).
Quality Score : Quality Score is a very important Google advertising metric. This is basically a way Google uses to judge whether your ad is appropriate for what a user is searching for.
Google calculates Quality Score based on CTR, landing page quality, and the overall Quality Score of the Google Ads account. If your ad has a high quality rating, you get a discount on the CPC of your ad page.
A high quality ad score means a discount on the cost of a click
Ad Copy : Writing compelling ad copy is an essential part of a well-functioning PPC.
Why?
Good ad copy = high CTR.
High CTR = High Quality Score.
So you pay less for the same click.
vice versa. If your ad copy isn't getting people to click, your Quality Score will suffer. Then your ppc becomes super expensive.
Ad group and account management : You can use data from your Google Ads account to optimize ad spend.
google ad group
The second difference between SEO and SEM: how long to harvest the effect
One of the main differences between SEO and SEM is speed.
General: SEO takes tim