SEM and SEO
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are often confused for one another. Indeed the terms are sometimes mistakenly used interchangeably. Put simply, SEM is a paid tactic and involves bidding on keywords to appear at the top of the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) and paying each time a user clicks on the ad. In contrast, SEO involves proving the relevance of your website for certain key terms and phrases so that when people search the terms, a link to your website will appear without paying to be placed on the SERP.
The easiest way to distinguish between the two is by their placement on a SERP. As a general rule, paid SEM results appear at the top and right column of the page and are labeled as “Ad” whereas SEO results appear below. Clicking on these links will not cost the website any money.
Most people instantly think of Google when they think about paid search engine advertising, but there are other platforms that excel at this including Bing and Yahoo.
How Does SEM Work?
When you start your campaign you decide which relevant words and phrases that customers are searching for that you want to use. Then you bid the amount you are willing to spend, without going over, to ensure your campaign is a profitable one.
For every user that clicks from the search engine to the web page you selected, the actions are recorded for analytics and billing. Nearly every search engine charges at a rate called “pay-per-click” (PPC); charging you for each user that chooses to click through to your website.
You can choose the time of day, precise customer location, and several other factors to alter if and when your ads appear in order to maximum campaign efficiency.
In the bidding environment, if you are the highest bidder, you are charged one penny more than the second highest bidder. If your bid on the term “mobile phone battery” is $1.50 and the second highest bid for the same term is $1.00, then with the highest bid, your ad would appear, but the click would only cost you $1.01.
This adds quite the strategic element to bidding and keyword monitoring, something that a battery producer does not have as a core competency. The right agency, however, is focused 24/7 on these terms and strategies to maximize the return on your media investment.
SEM vs SEO
Everyone that is well versed in digital marketing will have a long-term goal of achieving organic search engine ranking for keywords relevant to what they offer.
But is that the final answer to the SEM vs SEO debate? Well as with most things in life, the real answer is more complex than a simple “go left” or “go right”.
Some people believe that they shouldn’t have to pay to push their content in any form. Not on Google, not on Social Media, not anywhere. While this belief is perfectly understandable, it takes a much longer time to grow your business organically. Sometimes quick results are needed, especially if you are working on a particular time-sensitive campaign.
New sites also lack the time necessary to build up the foundation they need to see organic results. The truth is, whether you pay to push content or pay to create consistent quality content, both involve paying to reach more potential customers.
The other challenge is that even the most well-intended organizations are often blindsided by catch phrases and internet memes. Take the Wisconsin Tourism Federation, who for years went by the acronym WTF. They had SEM campaigns around the term WTF until the internet decided that those letters meant something entirely different. The former WTF now goes by the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin as their key term “WTF” became prohibitively expensive and irrelevant.
Spillover Effects
An efficiently optimized SEM campaign can provide a positive Return on Investment (ROI) before it has any spillover effects on your other digital marketing efforts.
The first spillover effect in using PPC for keyword discovery is finding hidden gem key phrases that can accelerate the time frame of your SEO efforts. One category of keyphrases is those that target awareness stage problem-solving questions that your prospects are struggling with. For example, multi-national retailers have utilized keyword strategy to address the ways different regions call specific things, soda and pop is one of those instances.
Another category is purchase stage keywords. These are less obvious, possibly long-winded phrases that few businesses are directly targeting. The benefit of finding key phrases in either category is that you can potentially start cashing in on your SEO campaign in several months instead of a couple of years. Content can be strategically created to address these terms, resulting in articles and posts dedicated to showing the product feature comparisons with competitors.
A second spillover effect that your SEM can have on your other marketing is the greater efficiency that conversion rate optimization testing (CRO) has while being driven by PPC. You can run a CRO campaign for a vast ocean of keywords in a much shorter time frame, with greater accuracy, than with SEO alone.
Essentially, CRO looks at the users and factors that surround a conversion and seek to replicate the results, meaning if a user acts like a buyer and looks like a buyer, then every effort should be made to convert them into a buyer.
SEM and SEO
Even though SEM and SEO are often confused for one another, they are not the same. Both have the same ultimate goal though, to get you online traffic! If you’re looking to grow your online presence with SEM, the experts at Quick Marketing can help. Contact us today to get started!
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