SEO Vs. SEM: What is the Difference Between SEO and SEM?

img-1

The main difference between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is that SEO focuses on optimizing a website for organic search traffic, while SEM includes both organic search and paid advertising to attract traffic. .

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of trying to rank in a search engine’s organic results. It involves four main steps:

  • Keyword research – Find what people are searching for
  • On-page SEO – Craft content for searchers
  • Off-page SEO – Build trust and authority from other websites
  • Technical SEO – Ensure search engines can find, crawl and index your content

What is SEM?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is where you drive traffic to your site from search engines. You can drive this traffic from organic or paid results, or both. You use SEO to get traffic from organic results and pay-per-click (PPC) to get traffic from paid results.

In other words:

Both SEO and PPC are types of SEM.

img-2

Now, YouTube creators and businesses alike benefit from sharing a mix of long and short content—all on one platform. The wide array of video marketing channels means that your strategy needs to be flexible. Each platform—whether it’s YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or your website—has its own best practices for video. Choosing to create either short-form videos or long-form videos isn’t really an option if you want your content strategy to be successful in 2023 and beyond. Both long-form and short-form videos have their place in your content plan. Keep reading to learn more about each type of video content and when you should use them for your business.

Using PPC and SEO is the best SEM strategy for ad-heavy keywords

Google shows more ads for some keywords than others.

For example, there are four ads for the keyword “car insurance.”

Search results for "car insurance"

This leads to fewer clicks on organic results, as they get pushed down the page.

How many fewer clicks?

For the keyword “car insurance,” there are clicks on paid results for 23% of searches:

Hire a team of expert marketers to handle the research process for you

Just because something worked for one type of video doesn’t mean it will always work. Your video marketing strategy needs to be flexible and adjust to people’s viewing behaviors for maximum impact.

Ready to grow your revenue with Journey Together ? Get a Free Consultation to Boost Your Business.

What do you think?

What to read next