Table of Contents

Features

The only difference in SEM vs SEO is that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) focuses on optimizing a website to get traffic from organic search results.

On the extra hand, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) aims to get traffic and visibility from organic and paid searches.

SEM Overview

Remember: SEM is a high-level term that includes SEO. So everything I just described for SEO also applies to SEM.

However, in addition to SEO, SEM also includes PPC. So PPC is a field with its own set of features, best practices, and more.

Bid: Whether you’re using Google Ads or Bing Ads, paid ads in search are all about bidding. By PPC, you bid on a specific keyword. Then, when someone searches for that keyword, your ad appears.

Ad ranks are usually proportional to how much someone is bidding. So if you are the highest bidder, you will appear above all other ads.

Then, when someone clicks your ad, you pay the amount you bid. When someone clicks on your ad, the amount you pay is known as your cost per click (CPC).

Quality Score: Quality Score is a tremendously important Google Ads metric. It’s Google’s way of finding out if your ad matches what someone is searching for. If you find this difficult, maybe a Denver SEO agency could help you resolve the technical problems.

Google calculates the Quality Score based on a combination of the click-through rate, the excellence of your landing page, and the overall Quality Score of your Google advertising account. Then, if your ad has a high quality score, you’ll get a reduction for each click.

Ad Copy – Here, writing compelling ad copy is a HUGE part of the responsibility with PPC. Why? Great ad copy = high CTR. So a CTR means a good Quality Score, which means you pay less for the same click.

The opposite is also true. If your copy doesn’t get people to click, your Quality Score will suffer. Then your PPC will start to get very expensive.

Ad groups and account management: This is where you use data in your Google Ads account to optimize your ad spend.

SEO Overview

SEO is the practice of repeatedly optimizing a website to rank it in organic, non-paid search engine results pages (SERPs).

However, Google uses over 200 ranking signals in its algorithm. So here it is said that SEO can be divided into four main subcategories: On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO, Technical SEO, and User Interaction Signals.

On-page SEO – This is where you optimize your website for the keywords your target customer is searching for on Google, Bing, and different search engines.

For example, an on-page SEO best practice includes your crucial keyword in your name tag, meta description, and webpage URL.

Off-page SEO: Off-page SEO is all about receiving trust and authority signals after other websites.

However, it is mainly about building high-quality backlinks to your site. However, Google may also use other off-page signs to assess your site’s authority, such as E-A-T and social media input.

Technical SEO – This is where you make sure that Google and other search engines can crawl and then index all sides of your website.

Technical SEO here also encompasses things like making sure your pages load quickly rather than setting up your site architecture correctly.

Operator interaction signals: How users interact with your site helps Google determine if your page is suitable for someone’s search.

For example, if your page has a high bounce rate, that could mean your page isn’t giving someone the answer to their query.

Then, if Google thinks your page doesn’t fit well for that keyword, they can lower your ranking a bit. Or completely off the main page in general.

Also Read: How Much do Google Ads Cost? – Google AdWords, Advertisements, and More