The company’s visibility in search engines is influenced by many factors related to website optimization, so you should know what SEM and SEO are and what is the difference between them.
SERP marketing (SERP, or Search Engine Result Page) – focuses on promoting the company in search engine results, and it is divided into two types: SEM and SEO.
What is SEM?
SEM – Search Engine Marketing means search engine marketing. In practice, it is based on paid ads, which usually appear at the top of SERP. SEM includes SEO activities, because without website optimization for search engines there is no point in spending money on advertising, so before we decide on AdWords, it is worth to refine your website to avoid incurring costs, which will not translate into effect.
It is worth to remember that SEM = SEO + PSA (Paid Search Advertising), where in SEO equation it refers to all activities related to website optimization, while PSA are paid advertisements in search engines. Sometimes you can find the equation that SEM = SEO + PPC, where PPC means clicking on links to ads leading to a website.
PPC – Pay Per Click means the type of paid ads for which the fee is charged only when the user clicks on ads. In Google’s SERP, paid links are marked with the inscription Sponsored or Advertising, so it is easy to distinguish them from the organic results that we get with SEO.
What is SEO?
SEO – Search Engine Optimization, means optimization of the website for search engines. SEO activities focus on getting a high search engine ranking without spending money on advertising in SERP. This type of activity is focused on high quality content containing keywords that potential customers can enter into the search engine.
There are two types of SEO: On-Page and Off-Page.
On-Page SEO – on our website, i.e. optimization of the website in order to get the best possible visibility in SERP.
Examples of On-Page SEO:
Off-Page SEO – in addition to your own website, i.e. activities consisting in building a backlink profile, which should be located on sites with higher authority than the positioned website. For this reason, Off-Page SEO is often called link building.
Examples of Off-Page SEO:
The difference between SEM and SEO – summary
SEO is included in SEM, so paid search engine marketing does not make sense without website optimization. Both SEM and SEO activities involve the use of key words, which in case of SEM have a major role in setting up paid advertisements and are an essential element of SEO on the website. Skillful use of key phrases can bring measurable benefits from our activities inside and outside our website. When planning a company’s strategy, it is necessary to focus on systematic actions to optimize the website, which will contain valuable content to be liked by people and search engines.