What Is The Difference Between SEO and SEM?

At Sparked Elements we know the importance of helping our clients excel in all areas of their businesses. Our promise is to simplify the web and marketing jargon and give you clear, easy-to-understand explanations that will improve the quality of your business’s design and marketing decisions.

Basic SEO and SEM Definitions

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Simply put, SEO is everything your site does internally to get itself noticed by search engines. SEM is an abbreviation for Search Engine Marketing. SEM is all of the paid advertisements you run on search engines that are focused on bringing visitors to your website. It is very important to note that they are not interchangeable.

Examples of SEO Usage and SEM Strategies

The difference between SEO and SEM is that SEO strictly refers to the way your website is communicating to search engines and its compatibility with modern web standards. SEM on the other hand, refers to online advertising methods that are focused on bring visitors to your website.

Content Example:

When designing with SEO in mind, there is a focus on creating organic content that will improve your chances of showing up in a search engine on the first page. Search engines look for keywords and context. Make sure that your site talks about things in the way that people would ask a question. For example, odds are you made a search asking “What is the difference between SEO and SEM”. This led you to reading this article. That is a result of strategic SEO usage.

When designing with SEM in mind, you might have a pay-per-click ad that you purchase to appear on the first page of a search engine result under certain criteria. This would be a separate element from your actual website content that would try to engage someone who is searching for a related topic to click on your website for more information.

Context Example:

Improving your website content might improve your chances of appearing on the first page of a search engine result, but remember, you have competition. Some of these organizations might be have a more established company than you do. Therefore, it is important to realize that it takes time to rise on the search results. Sometimes you need to have a stronger focus on specific phrases that consumers would search that your competition isn’t using.

Try this: Search “Accountant” on your preferred search engine. Look at the search results. Now search “Account in (insert your local area)”. Notice the change in who appears on the first results page? By utilizing SEO strategies like creating targeted page titles, you can make your site target a specific area or search term. SEM would focus on putting separate ads in the top or sidebar/surrounding area of the organic search results page when you look for an accountant. This advertisement placement would be something you would pay for based on certain search terms or what location within the search you want to appear.

The Mobile-Friendly Test: SEO and SEM

Is your website mobile-friendly? Think about how many times you’ve searched for something on your phone. Did you know that Google no longer loads non-mobile websites on mobile searches? This means if Google says your website isn’t compliant to their mobile browsing standards, then your site will have issues being viewed on a phone. Here’s the best thing to do: Go to Google Mobile-Friendly Test: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ . Type in your URL. If Google says you aren’t compliant then you should probably look into speaking with an experienced website developing company, like Sparked Elements, to get your page optimized so prospective clients can find your company’s site hassle-free.

Here’s the Big SEO and SEM Secret

The secret most developers won’t tell you is that SEO is done once. You need to have someone qualified optimize your site, and move on. There should NOT be a monthly fee for SEO. This should only change if you needed to update your SEO for different services, products, target markets, etc. If a company wants to charge you monthly for SEO. RUN!

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