SEO and SEM, Search Optimisation, and search engine marketing, these terms often go together with one another when we regard them as terms of digital marketing. Filled with jargon, these concepts are often misunderstood and the words are used interchangeably. So, here’s a quick guide: SEO vs SEM 101!
Before we start with the differentiation, let’s understand both the terms first:
SEO, Search Engine Optimisation, is a strategy that digital marketers use when they create a website which day wish to sustain over a long period of time gaining traction and traffic organically. This basically means that they work on the back end, creating valuable content that is easy for the search engine to understand, and crawl, cache and index within their databases. So that, when the user searches for a particular keyword, their website automatically pops up on the first page of the search results, gaining them organic traction from genuine sources and not black hatting traffic.
SEM, Search Engine Marketing, on the other hand, is a strategy used by digital marketers when they wish to promote their website and gain traction and traffic in an inorganic manner. In other words, they pay for their website to rank on the first page of the search results so that they gain traffic directly targeting their audience and the community that the website associates with.
Here’s a side-by-side representation of SEO vs SEM:
| Characteristics | SEO | SEM |
| Strategies | Uses only organic strategies developed over time by perfecting content to appear on the SERP | Uses paid strategies by bidding on keywords to rank higher on the SERP |
| Process | It is a long-term process | It is a short term strategy to gain traction |
| Results | The results f this strategy takes time to reap the benefits | SEM assured instant gratifications and immediate result |
| Visibility | The website ranks for searches that the search engine considers most relevant | The website ranks according to the bid and budget placed in the selected in AdWords. |
| Measurability | Difficult to measure since traffic pours from a lot of sources | Easy to measure due to the specific URL used for that bid or campaign |
| Ranking | Albeit a slow process, the results of the ranking are 24/7 and long-term | This strategy provides short term solutions but the results on the rankings are limited to the time the budget is available |
| CTR Rate | Since the results are organic, the CTR is high; leads are often more reliable | The CTR as well as the bounce rate is seen to be quite high when clicks come through SEM |
But WHAT ARE ALL THESE JARGONS?!
Let’s get to them out of the way:
1.SEM:
Search Engine marketing, a strategy, or now even a niche in itself, is a strategy used by digital marketers to promote their website to rank higher on the SERP so that the traffic on the website increases and so do the leads collected.
2.SERP:
This stands for the Search Engine Results Page which consists of the search results that the search engine shows after the user hits enter on their search.
3.PPC:
Pay-Per-Click, another name for Search Engine Marketing as in this type of marketing you pay based on every click you get.
4.SEO:
Search Engine Optimization is the practice of optimizing your website in order to improve your rank in the organic search results of Google and cannot be paid for. Learn more about SEO
5.Keyword Research:
One of the first steps of setting up a successful paid search campaign is doing the right keyword research to know which keywords you should be investing in and what types of keywords you should be adding to your account.
6.Avg. Position:
The slot in the paid search results that your ad is showing up in, on average. Generally, you want to be in the highest slot which means you’ll want the lowest average position. If you were in the top spot all the time you would have an average position of 1, the second spot would be 2, etc.
7.Ad Rank:
A combination of various factors including Quality Score and Max CPC that determine your position in the paid search results.
8.Quality Score:
This is the rating that Google assigns to you at the keyword level that represents the overall quality of your marketing for that keyword. There are three main factors that play into Quality Score:
- Expected CTR
- Ad Relevance
- Landing page experience
9.Impressions:
Impressions are a type of metric that can be used to measure the results of your SEM campaign. They are the number of times your ad or your boosted webpage has been shown on the webpage.
Metric:
CPM (Cost per 1000 Impressions): Total Cost Of Campaign / (Total Number Of Impressions / 1000)
10.CTR:
An abbreviation for Click-Through-Rate, this metric measures the number of clicks are leads post the the impressions-stage, which is, how many people click on the ad after seeing it.
Metric:
CTR = Clicks ÷ Impression
11.CPC:
An abbreviation for Cost-Per-Click, this metric is used to measure the cost that a marketer incurs per click of their ad.
Metric:
CPC = Total Cost / Number of Clicks
12.Conversion rate:
This metric shows how many clicks turned into hot leads which ended up taking the intended end action, usually sales.
Conv. Rate = (Number Of Positive Conversions/ Number Of Clicks Received) X 100
13.CPA
An abbreviation for Cost-Per-Acquisition, it measures how much it costs, in totality, to turn an impression to a conversion.
CPA = Total Cost/ (Number of ad impressions x CTR x CR)
OR Total Cost/ Total Acquisitions
And there you go! Welcome to the world of SEM, my friend! I hope this blog helped you clear some concepts while discover some new ones. Tell us what you think of them in the comments below. This is all for the week, see you next time…
Until then,
Toodles👋
