The Difference Between SEO and SEM

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Nick Wilson

All to often I hear people using the words SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) as if they were the same or synonyms of each other. They are both used frequently in websites and they are both vital to whether your site lives or dies. While they both have very specific definitions, a surprising amount of people do not use them properly.

Which Is Better?

SEO and SEM are typically used for increasing SERP (Search Engine Rank Position) in order to gain significant organic traffic. This does depend on your budget though, the better funded sites are more likely using PPC campaigns.

Search Engine Optimization: The process of increasing your websites search engine rank positions with in the search results of Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. This can be done both, on-site and off-site. Typically this is involves backlinks or keyword stuffing.

Search Engine Marketing: It’s how a webmaster drives traffic toward their website. This is categorized as referral traffic, and typically this is accomplished by starting PPC (Pay Per Click) ad campaigns where your ad is displayed above the search engine results.

Proper on-site search engine optimization is necessary and it takes a lot of effort to do it consistently to gain ranks. However, the proper use of SEO can allow you become more powerful with less work in the long run, provided your consistent. Pay per click ads have the advantage of building SERP’s over time as well, but it costs. If you have the money and understand their inner-workings, PPC campaigns can be very useful for building organic traffic.