Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) represent two arms of an effective online marketing strategy. SEO is managing your website in such a way that it organically attracts search engine algorithms to ensure your site is positioned at the top of search engine result pages. SEM, on the other hand, is a paid strategy that works to get your site to the top.
To put it simply, consider them your long-term (SEO) and short-term (SEM) search engine strategies. SEO is a marathon; it takes time and attention. SEM is the sprint. You’ll likely get the results you’re looking for faster, but they won’t look to searchers as an organic result. And that’s a con that SEO will never have.
To understand which is right for you, it helps to further understand the pros and cons for each.
SEO: Long-Term Optimization
SEO is the process of leveraging what we know about search engine algorithms to push web pages upwards in the search results for a given term or set of terms. This creates organic and unpaid visibility for a site. Once you start appearing as one of the top results in searches related to your product or service, users see your site as
A few methods for increasing your site’s optimization include quality content, appropriate keywords and title tags, and backlinks. If your site appears relevant through title tags and high content quality, as well as having a good number of backlinks for sourcing, that positions you well in terms of how search engines view your content. Quality content will help search engine algorithms and (more importantly) users view you as an authority on the subjects connected to your product or service. The mobile-friendliness of your site, as well as how fast it loads, can be other crucial factors in your ranking.
Once you have set up your site for success, maintaining it will pay dividends in organic leads and revenue.
SEM: Results When You Need Them
Even if you have planted excellent seeds with good SEO, a little bit of extra fertilizer through SEM can accelerate those gains. SEM uses paid advertisements through the search engine to end up as one of the top few results. These can either take the form of search ads, which appear at the top of a general search, or more targeted shopping ads, where you pay for your item to be run at the top of shopping results for similar items.
In terms of cost-per-customer, SEM tends to be the less expensive option in the short run and can direct people to your product more directly and cheaply. Many SEM options include pay-per-click (PPC), meaning you only pay when users click to your site. However, these ads stop running as soon as you stop paying and do nothing to organically optimize your site.
The benefits of SEM can be leveraged very effectively to help get rid of excess stock, launch a new product, or enrich a new website that you’ve established to help build up how frequently people are visiting your newly optimized site. These short-term effects should not be discounted, but they do not constitute the entirety of a marketing strategy in themselves.
Find Experienced SEO and SEM Specialists at Arca Interactive
No matter what stage of development your marketing strategy is at, Arca Interactive can lead you through striking the right balance between SEO and SEM. A properly mixed strategy, like a properly mixed rocket fuel, can be the difference between fizzling out on the launch pad and sending your project to the moon. Reach out today, and we’ll help you develop the right strategy for your website.
