SEO Vs SEM. What is the difference & Which One is Better For Your Business?
The main function of search engines is to enable users to find the results they are looking for, and this includes advertisements as well as complements the search results page.
So what is the difference between organic and paid marketing and which one is better for your business?
Through this article, you will learn the difference between free search results and paid results, and learn the importance and effectiveness of advertising through search engines.
Outlines
1. What is An Organic Search or SEO?
How Do Search Engines See The Web With SEO?
Key Words & Quality Content
2. How Paid Search or SEM is Different From SEO?
How Do Search Engines See The Web With SEM?
How Does Search Engine Marketing Work?
1. Organic Search- SEO
Are you ready to dive into the world of free search? In this section, we will explain free search results, that is, unpaid search results, and we will discover together the concept of search engine optimization SEO and the impact of good website content on free search results.
Well, let's start!
How do search engines see the web with SEO?
When you search for a piece of specific information using a search engine, a results page appears that contains a list of free and non-paid results.
These results are generally in the middle of the page, and they are the results that the search engine has determined that correspond to the search query or the words you entered in the search query.
The results pages also display ads or paid results, but in a separate area from the free results and are marked with a special tag.
It is true that the unpaid results and advertisements appear on the same page, but they differ in a key point, which is that the free results appear on the pages without any financial cost. Where you don’t pay any money for appearing on the results pages, unlike the advertisements and paid results.
So how do you improve the chances of your website appearing in unpaid results? The key is quality.
Key Words & Quality Content
Think this way. The main goal of search engines is to help users positively with what they are looking for. All you have to do is just help the search engine rank your site among the results that users are looking for.
Making improvements to your website to ensure that it appears in unpaid results is called search engine optimization and search engine optimization helps the engine to find and understand your site.
If search engines are always looking for good content so you have to think about exactly what your potential customers might be looking for.
If you want an email tool, for example, you will use this word in the search query, but this search is broad and may also mean that you are looking for emails, tools, or even how email tools work.
It is better to focus on appearing in more detailed search results, for example, the best email finder tool.
You can achieve this by focusing on creating innovative and appropriate content that explains how the tool works and what are the benefits of using the email lookup tool. And It is available for free!
This will help your site appear in the search results securing the best position on the search engine.
Showing up in these unpaid results is a great opportunity to help customers and it doesn't cost you a penny. All you have to do is make sure that your content fits the requirements of the searchers and will get them to click links to visit your website.
2. Paid Search
It's time to talk a little bit about advertising on search engines. In this section, we will discuss how to prepare ads on search engines, or what is called search engine marketing SEM. We will also explain the importance of this type of marketing and how businesses compete to display their ads.
How Do Search Engines See The Web With SEM?
Suppose you live in the UK and want to have a cup of coffee while walking around the city. The first thing you will do is pull out your mobile phone and search for a coffee in the UK on the engine.
You will now see a page full of options, and each section on this page, whether it is a map, ads, or free search results, all represent options that can be taken into account.
Some of these results were determined using the free search feature, and they include the web pages that are most relevant to your search query according to the engine, while the other sections on the results page are all advertisements.
It is noteworthy that the page does not include any advertisements that are not related to the topic of the search. Rather, all advertisements appear to be somewhat similar to the unpaid search results.
This is thanks to the design that plays a huge role in enhancing the effectiveness of paid search ads.
How Does Search Engine Marketing Work?
So how exactly do search engine ads work? There are many models for this type of ad, and perhaps the most famous are the text ads that we see on search results pages.
Every time someone makes a search request, advertisers compete behind the scenes to show their ads and all this happens in a split second so that the searcher only sees the winning ads, that is, those that appear on the results page.
So, how do search engines choose winning ads? The two main factors here are the price-per-impression offer and the level of quality.
The price offer or bid is the maximum amount you are willing to pay for each click on the ad. Each time someone clicks on the ad, you incur a cost equal to or in some cases lower than the bid.
For example, if you set the bid price for the keyword as two dollars, this is the maximum amount you will pay for one click on the ad, and you don’t incur any cost at all if no one clicks on the ad.
It is always preferred that the bidding corresponds to the value of the keywords of the business, but the last word always remains and you are the decision-maker in determining the amount.
Some advertisers, for example, may pay 50 cents per keyword, while other advertisers are willing to pay ten dollars per keyword.
The average bid varies by industry and keywords. Bidding is undoubtedly important, but the quality is also important.
Winning an auction does not depend only on offering the highest price, and this applies in the digital world as well, where search engines can choose ads and keywords because they are simply more relevant to the search query.
In fact, ads related to the topic of the search may take a better place than others on the search results page, even if their bid is lower.
In some cases, it doesn’t matter how much the bid price is because search engines never display any advertisements that are not related to the topic of the search.
In short, paid advertising provides another way to promote your products and services on search engine results pages, and by establishing a good advertising campaign on search engines, you can ensure that customers are reached at the right moment when they are looking for what you have to offer.
Now, that you understand both parties, which one is the best for your business? Start action now, and secure a better place on the search engine.