SEM vs. SEO

[InsightsDigital]

As I am trying to determine what is the best percentage to spend time and funding, I would like to know from your experiences, how do your appropriate effort and resources to SEO and SEM. Which one do you consider more important?

[MktgRob]

They both are important in their own ways and you have to do both but regarding the mix, some info is needed. Is the purpose of the site to Rank well? If so lean more towards SEO. Is the purpose to engage site visitors and convince them to patronize your business? Then lean more towards SEM. But if you want the best of both worlds try to strike the perfect balance.

[smithroy9]

Yes both are important in there way, SEO is for keywords promotion and getting back links, and SEM used for getting traffics or visitors. The main function is common between them is keywords selection.

[phoenix06007]

SEO means Search engine optimization...
SEO is used mostly by web designers and front-end web developers to optimize a website for search engines. In other words, SEO helps people find your website. This is done by:
* quality content,
* web standards,
* links,
* inbound marketing,
* and keyword placement on your website.

SEM means Search engine marketing.......
I see SEM as a rather broad term. It's everything that can be done to utilize the technology of search engines with the goal of promoting a web site and increasing its traffic, its "stickiness," and, in the case of sites that promote a business (or are a business), increase profits. SEO, therefore, would be a subset of SEM.....

[InsightsDigital]

Thanks for the insights. I have seen people use the term SEM to describe different aspects of online marketing.

[snapshot]

They cannot be separated actually because both are relevant to the business world and how websites can get promoted to have better share of the commercial space online. PPC and SEO for example are closely relevant to each other.

[MktgRob]

SEO means Search engine optimization...
SEO is used mostly by web designers and front-end web developers to optimize a website for search engines. In other words, SEO helps people find your website. This is done by:
* quality content,
* web standards,
* links,
* inbound marketing,
* and keyword placement on your website.

SEM means Search engine marketing.......
I see SEM as a rather broad term. It's everything that can be done to utilize the technology of search engines with the goal of promoting a web site and increasing its traffic, its "stickiness," and, in the case of sites that promote a business (or are a business), increase profits. SEO, therefore, would be a subset of SEM.....

While I agree with your assessment of SEM, I think your claim that SEO is done only by web designers and front end developers is a bit to broad. In large companies this is true but in many small companies, especially in the current economy, the SEO responsibilities probably reside in the hands of a marketing person. This is especially true of companies that downsize and who have their website built. With some basics in hand a marketing person or even and administrative assistant could continue to refine and tweak SEO as necessary. And I am speaking as one of the marketing reps who was at one time asked to take on SEO responsibilities when the web designer was let go.

[seopositive]

SEO
1. Having Keyword rich web pages

2. Having Keywords in the title of your pages

3. Having Keywords in your domain name

4. Naming the images in your site using keywords

5. Naming the Alt tags of images using keywords

and

SEM
1. Search Engine Optimization

2. Article Marketing

3. Video Marketing

4. Social Network Marketing

5. PPC, or Pay Per Click Advertising

[MktgRob]

SEO
1. Having Keyword rich web pages

2. Having Keywords in the title of your pages

3. Having Keywords in your domain name

4. Naming the images in your site using keywords

5. Naming the Alt tags of images using keywords

and

SEM
1. Search Engine Optimization

2. Article Marketing

3. Video Marketing

4. Social Network Marketing

5. PPC, or Pay Per Click Advertising

Under SEO you forgot a biggie, that being constantly adding new and fresh content to keep the SE spiders happy

[redesignunit]

thanks for sharing nice info seo and seo both are important

[mokmok69]

SEO is a part of SEM so no competition for those two.

[MktgRob]

SEO is a part of SEM so no competition for those two.

Agree that there is no competition but you do have to make sure that both are itemized in the larger marketing budget to ensure that resources are available. The devil is in the details as an old boss of mine used to say.

[ap09.com]

Search engine marketing(SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion
Search engine optimization(SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion.

[AirForceOne]

Right, I do think SEM should include SEO, PPC and other methods that are not included in SEO. :)

Have a nice day,