SEO and SEM: What’s the Difference?

SEO AND SEM: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

RAZI SALIH

SEO AND SEM: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? Search marketing is comprised of two basic components: search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). The major difference between the two is that SEM defines search marketing that is paid for, while SEO describes earning traffic through free or unpaid listings.

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SEO

SEM

The term SEO is typically used to describe methods of gaining traffic to a website and building leads organically, by creating a website that search engines consider as having relevance to users. Businesses use SEO tactics to appear higher in the search results. All major search engines display results in a list format based on how relevant the pages are classified by the algorithms.

SEM used to refer to all search marketing, but more recently has come to define only paid search. This includes paid search advertising, pay-per-click advertising, cost-per-click, and cost-per-thousand impressions. The most popular platform for paid search is Google AdWords.

BOTH SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION AND SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING FALL UNDER THE UMBRELLA OF DIGITAL MARKETING.

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