What is the Difference Betwen SEO and SEM?

5 May 2006 at 12:03 by Eric Morgan

You have heard the words - SEO - SEM - PPC; you know they are related to internet marketing but what do they mean and how are they different?

SEO
Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing a website so it ranks higher in the natural search engine results of selected keyword phrases. For example if you own a web design business in California you may want to optimize your site for the keyword phrase california web design in major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. If you succeed in making changes to your website your ranking will increase. The ultimate goal would be ranked #1 for your keyword phrases; this means that if you went to Google, for example, and typed in california web design your website would be the 1st result in the middle search results section. The very top and right search results are sponsored results which we will talk about in a moment.

SEO is usually a very cost-effect medium of advertising. You can usually track results very easily as well to see if it is paying off or not. There are some drawbacks to SEO though. Because search engine algorithms are very complex and large the changes you make to your website may take up to a few months to take effect on the search engines. The biggest advantage to SEO is the very profitable ROI in the long-term. Unlike other forms of advertising the work you do one month will build upon the next month. For example, if you pay for a listing in a yellow-page phone book you will pay X amount of dollars every month for that listing; and the results will be comparable month after month. For SEO you pay X amount of dollars but every month you have SEO services you will get greater results. One month you may get 10 visitors, the next 100, the next 500, the next 1,000, the next 10,000 etc. all for the same X amount of dollars every month. As time goes on your ROI increases at an exponential rate.

SEO is a great form of advertising and I suggest anyone interested in search engine optimization do their research before hiring someone to provide SEO services for you. You may feel free to contact MWI about their search engine optimization services for a free consultation and SEO report on your website.

SEM
Search Engine Marketing is the process of placing PPC (pay-per-click) sponsored ads on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN for certain keyword phrases. Again in our previous example you may place an ad for california web design on Google. Your ad will appear on the very top or right side of the search engine results page; it will be marked as a ‘sponsored link’. You will only be charged by Google when someone actually clicks on your ad and it will be based on how many people are bidding on that search term. You may end up paying $0.10 to about $5 for each visitor to your website depending on how competitive your industry is.

Search engine marketing has the advantage of providing results immediately; as soon as you setup a campaign the visitors will start coming to your website. The biggest drawback to SEM is the fact that it is becoming more popular and thus driving up the cost per click of each visitor to your website. It also has a lower return on investment when compared to SEO for long-term marketing campaigns. You may feel free to contact MWI about their search engine marketing services for a free consultation and SEM report on your website.

Eric Morgan has been in the internet marketing and web design industry for over 5 years. He currently assists companies with bringing in more profits through utilizing the power of search engines. Visit MWI Internet Marketing for more information.

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