What are SEO and SEM?

SEO and SEM are digital marketing strategies that are used to increase visibility and improve the positioning of websites. But do you know what SEO and SEM are, and which strategy to choose?

Choosing between SEO and SEM as a digital marketing strategy for your website can cause confusion. Most likely because they both have the same end goal: to increase traffic to your site and, ultimately, boost your sales.

But even with this shared objective, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) have some notable differences, which we will explore in this article.

This concept refers to any marketing activity which takes place within a search engine. SEM is a set of techniques and strategies that can help you to increase the visibility of your websites on search engines.

Simply put, SEM means creating paid ads for certain very specific keywords.

Paid ads are created for certain and specific keywords, in such a way that when a user goes online and searches for a product or service, the ad which appears first, above those of the competition, will attract the entire focus of the user and potential client.

SEM also refers to the promotion of a website on search engines via paid ads such as Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising (formerly known as Bing Ads); and on major platforms such as YouTube, Google Shopping, Google Maps and others, thanks to Display by Google Ads.

The overarching goal of this strategy is to make your website immediately visible. The more a campaign is configured to stand out, the greater the chances of your ads appearing in front of your target audiences.

When responding to Internet searches, Google and other search engines will evaluate signals from hundreds of different websites.

They do so in order to determine which sites best correspond to the search in question, to give users a satisfactory experience and, of course, to help them find what they are looking for as quickly as possible.

A fully SEO-optimized website will have a greater chance of appearing among the first organic search results.

Doing so is extremely important for your business’ website. But how does it happen?

SEO contains two separate groups of factors to be optimized:

• On-Page SEO covers the actions carried out within the website that should be optimized to position it as best as possible on search engines. What actions can we take within the website to improve SEO?
• An organized, intuitive internal structure. This will allow users to effortlessly browse your website. A smooth UX experience will lead to increased browsing time, and improve the metrics which Google considers when positioning one website over another.
• Optimized titles and descriptions. Keywords should be used when optimizing your website’s titles. These should be as appealing as possible, to attract more clicks. The same goes for descriptions. With a limited amount of characters, you must ‘seduce’ the user into buying your products or services.
• Optimized headers. H1, H2, H3… Optimizing these tags helps to improve SEO positioning. But how? With titles labeled as H1, subtitles as H2, subtitles subsections as H3, and so on.Organizing the information provided by your website serves to guide users to relevant content, and will ‘earn’ your website a better position than those which don’t work on optimizing their headers.
• Optimized content. This is one of the factors which Google and other search engines most take into account. As a rule of thumb, optimized content should contain between 1,500 and 2,000 words. Always use keywords correctly, but don’t overdo it!
• SEO-friendly URLs. Optimized URLs should be as short as possible; three or four words at most. The keyword should appear, but symbols such as underscores do not need to be included. A good option is to omit conjunctions or prepositions.
• Optimized loading time. User experience is key. Just as you wouldn’t wait long for a coffee in a bar before leaving, users abandon websites which take too long to load. What can be done to reduce load times and improve UX experience? In addition to issues like the size of your images and videos, pay close attention to Google’s Core Web Vitals. Google refers to this when positioning.

Off-Page SEO encompasses the optimizable actions which take place outside your website, with the goal of increasing its popularity and visibility on Google and other search engines. This type of SEO does not aim to modify the structure of the website or its content.

• Link Building (backlink generation). This boils down to being linked to by other websites. Everyone who does so essentially gives your website a vote of confidence. The more popular the site which links to yours, the more valuable the link. Obtaining quality backlinks grants you authority and improves the SEO positioning of your website. The generation of backlinks involves three different aspects:
  • Authority. Authority Score is a metric used to measure the authority of a domain. It denotes the authority that a website backlink can grant.
  • Number of unique linking domains. Here, the reference is to the number of unique domains which link to your website. You should ideally consider several different domains as part of your strategy.
  • Shared themes. Not just any website should link to yours. Linked sites should cover similar themes.
• Brand-building. These are important steps to improving your website’s online authority as it applies to search engines and users. An increase in online searches for your brand is usually an indicator of successful brand building. A handy tool for controlling and tracking your progress is Google Trends.
• Two key SEO strategies for Off-Page SEO:
  • Google MyBusiness is very useful for local businesses. Don’t forget that optimizing your website for greater visibility on localized results is also a part of Off-Page SEO. Google is widely used for searches related to local information.
  • Quotes. I.e. an online mention of your company: its name, telephone number, address, etc. Companies seeking to be positioned in local search engine results should consider these quotes, which are relevant in Off-Page SEO.
• Podcasts and online events. Podcasts have proliferated in recent years, and can be useful for companies seeking a competitive advantage, since they can help to reach new audiences and gain greater visibility on smaller, non-Google search engines.Online events such as webinars, on the other hand, are helpful for brand-building. They engage your audience and generate enthusiasm towards your business.

Although both SEO and SEM seek to improve the positioning of a website on Google and other search engines, it is worth examining the main differences between them.

• The most noticeable difference is that an SEO strategy should not incur a direct expense for each visit to your website, as it would with SEM. Having said that, SEO is not “free”, as many think. Getting your website to the top of search results takes time, effort, work, and a budget.If an initial SEO investment pays off, then the next step is to invest in maintenance. Spending on an SEM strategy, on the other hand, is much more constant, since you will have to pay for each click on the ad in question.
• Your website will be placed differently in search results depending on whether SEM or SEO is applied. Google Ads appear above regular search results. They can also be seen next to, above or below the search results on Google Play, Shopping or Google Maps. Organic results, meanwhile, are more centrally placed.
• Content differs between SEO and SEM. For the former, content must have a specific quality and length. For the latter, the content in each ad has a limited number of characters, to achieve the greatest possible impact.
• Timelines also differ in SEO and SEM. While in SEO, tangible results occur in the medium- to long-term, in SEM, they usually occur in the short- to medium-term.

If you want visibility for your company website as quickly as possible, you will most likely have to adopt an SEM strategy. This will allow you to appear in prime search positions, above even SEO-generated results.

A successful, organic SEO campaign can take months to propel your site to Google’s front page.

At Sherlock Communications, our specialized professionals are well versed in the finer details of optimization strategies, and we can guide you on which strategy to choose, including a mixed one.

When working with both SEO and SEM simultaneously, one option is to position keywords with an optimal CPC (cost per click) in Google AdWords. In this way, you can analyze whether those keywords were positioned via SEO, and stop bidding on them in AdWords.

In any case, you will increase the visibility of your company’s website in search engines, while lowering costs little by little. A reliable agency will be able to guide you every step of the way. For more information about SEO and SEM, contact us today.