What is the Difference Between SEO and SEM?

On today’s Quick SEO Tip, we talk about the difference between SEO and SEM… what do the acronyms mean?!?

Hi I’m Vi Wickam and this is Honest SEO Basics brought to you by the Get Listed Program and Social Edge. 

Today we’re going to talk about SEO and SEM. 

Now, people don’t really like to use acronyms all the time because they’re confusing. Three letter acronyms are all over the place and there are so many of them! So, let me define these for you really quickly. 

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. 

SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. 

Generally, when people talk about SEO what they mean is making your website for your business show up better in search engine ranking. 

So when somebody searches for the topic that your website is about, or the service that your business offers, SEO helps you rank higher in the organic rankings. 

The organic rankings are the regular listings in Google. 

But they could be the Google local listings, or Google maps, as well as Google Images, Google Videos, or the regular Google website listings. All of those are organic. All of those apply to Search Engine Optimization. 

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, refers to advertising. 

That’s where you’re paying money to show up somewhere on Google or Bing or another search engine- where you’re paying for your listing. 

Generally, this applies to Google AdWords, or Bing Ads. And it applies to showing up at the top of the listings. 

In Google, there’s a section at the top, there’s a section down the side where those are paid listings. Those are Search Engine Marketing. 

If you hear SEM- think Google Ad Words, think paying for advertising on Google, or paying for keywords for your bidding on a keyword. 

You’re going to show up along with your organic results. But you are going to pay every time somebody clicks on your ad. 

So Search Engine Optimization refers to organic search results- which would be regular website results, videos, images, and Google Local. 

Search Engine Marketing is advertising. It refers to Google ads, Bing ads, Google shopping, Bing shopping…so it’s basically shopping ads, or regular ads where you’re paying most of the time in the paid per click model. 

So you’re paying for the traffic generated by those ads. 

And that is your Quick SEO tip- that’s the difference between SEO and SEM. The difference between Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. 

Have a great day and I’ll see you next time!