SEO, SEM or just S-TREMELY CONFUSING?
Hey friends, in this week’s post, I’ll be sharing about a more technical topic – Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing. More often than not, I find myself confused and unsure about what these terms are and what they all mean. So, I’m going to do all the hard work instead and feed little nuggets of information to help you!
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) comes under the umbrella of Search Engine Marketing (SEM). It’s a computing term for maximising the number of visitors to a website by making sure that the site ranks high on the search results page. Essentially, organisations make changes to the design and content of their website, and by doing that, their site ranks high in the search engines for relevant keywords and phrases.
There are many aspects to SEO. Here’s some just to name a few:
Website Content Publishing, Social Media Interactions, Website User Experience, Content Update Frequency and Keyword Relevance
When done right, SEO practices bring about benefits such as enhanced user experience, generating quality leads, improved engagement rate and measurable results.
Enhanced User Experience – I mentioned earlier that with SEO, companies make changes to their website design and content. These changes often involve easier page navigation, good page loading speed and mobile-friendly configurations. Couple this with relevant information and there you have it, better user experience!
Generating Quality Leads – The traffic drawn to the site are also most likely consisting of people who are interested in the service or product, so there’s a better (higher) chance of converting them.
Improved Engagement Rate – With an enhanced user experience, it will reasonably mean that visitors spend a longer time on the site. Since the site is easier to navigate and it has information they’re looking for, they will engage with the content much more thoroughly.
Measurable Results – Results of the effort put in can be measured with Google Analytics and other web analytic tools. Information such as traffic conversion, sources, and page views (and many more) will be made available. This allows businesses to identify which keywords, channels or efforts are most valuable and continue working on them.
Now moving on, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a form of marketing by using paid advertisements to appear on search engine results pages. One of the techniques of SEM is Pay-Per-Click (PPC), meaning that advertisers pay when a user clicks on the advertisement. Businesses have to pay for each click regardless of the outcome – if the user ends up making a huge order or leaving the site immediately.
Among many other benefits, SEM generates immediate results, brings in more qualified leads and is great for local marketing.
Immediate Results – Online advertisements generally take a shorter time to create, and while there is an approval process before the advertisements can appear on search engine results pages, it takes only about one business day between creating and launching the advertisement.
More Qualified Leads – SEM allows us to create a customised audience. PPC advertisements can help to target specific demographics
Great for Local Marketing – Local marketing connects businesses in the region with the surrounding community. If I search for local businesses like laundromats near me, it’s local marketers making those queries connect with business listings and advertisements in search engines.
With that, I hope that the topic is not as confusing as it used to be! What are your thoughts? Come share with me in the comments!
Till next time!
The Deserving Truth 
Hello Deborah! This post made SEO so much easier to understand! Since businesses are able to measure the results to see if it’s worth the cost, it will still be expensive to reach the first page on Google search. For start-up businesses, they may not be able to afford it. What are the alternative for such businesses so that they are able to afford using SEO to advertise?
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Hi Joel, I’m glad you enjoyed the post! Yes I agree with you, implementing SEO tools can be very costly – going up to thousands of dollars, which new businesses may not have the funds to spare. I think they can consider alternatives such as social media marketing, partnering with influencers or online advertisements on platforms like Facebook. With social media marketing, all you need is an account and you can reach out to your audience. Influencers often have a huge following. Partnering with the right ones can help the business be more cost-efficient by reaching out to a wider range of audience. That being said, all these suggestions cost money too, I think businesses have to decide what their objectives are and decide what is the best approach they want to take.
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Very clear illustration of what seo and sem are! Do you think every business should use seo even when they are using sem? Or is it better to just focus on sem since it is easier?
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Hi Faith, I hope the post has helped you to better understand the topics 🙂 Well, in my honest opinion, I don’t think there is one right answer for this. There are many factors for a business to consider before deciding between SEO or SEM, or even both. Such factors can include industry competition, consumer purchasing behaviour, the current state of the business and funds available, among many others. So, I think it’s for the business to do its research and decide on the best strategy to employ.
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Hi Deborah! Nice share of the differences between SEO and SEM! You made it so much clearer to understand. As you mention that one of the techniques used for SEM is actually Pay per click, do you think a business will suffer a loss from that where most users click in just to browse through the website with no intention of purchase?
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Hi Sharon, I’m glad you found it easier to understand! That’s a good question you asked. There’s no way to know what are users’ intention when they’re on the site, we can only assume that they are there to ultimately make a purchase. However, I do think that if the business has relevant information on their site, then there’s no reason for users to leave the site immediately. Even if they clicked by accident, if the site appeals to them, they’ll spend some time on there, which can lead to sales. What do you think?
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Hello Deb, great post!! In your opinion is there any downside of SEO?
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Hi Bella, it’s nice to see you here again! That’s a very good question you asked. Well, SEO methods take a long time to show results. It is a long-term investment that requires regular maintenance and constant attention to see if there are any sustainable results. And, I think the most glaring downside to SEO is that there is no absolute guarantee that it will work. You can work hard to guess the keywords your consumers are going to use but there is no certain way to tell what they will enter in the search engine.
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