Health & Fitness
SEM Versus SEO: Myths & Facts
Small businesses wanting to stay competitive and grow rely on marketing. From newsletters to email subscriptions, to print ads, to coupons and other incentives, effective marketing depends on reaching people. Online marketing reaches a far larger audience than local print advertising, but costs money.
It’s here where small business owners must decide on what methods to use in order to get the most ROI. Two methods of online marketing are SEM and SEO. It’s on which one to concentrate that poses the biggest problem. Knowing which is the most effective will help make that decision.
SEM and SEO Explained
Though these two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, they do differ. SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, includes search engine optimization, direct submission and paid advertising--with a focus on the latter two. SEO or Search Engine Optimization, are techniques to better rank organically.
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“AdWords advertising has no impact on your organic or natural ranking in the search results; the two are completely separate” --Google Adwords (http://www.google.com/adwords/thirdpartypartners/)
For the purposes herein, SEM is essentially paid advertising and direct site submission, while SEO includes content creation and marketing. This is producing blog articles, digital sharecropping or publishing original content on other properties, and social media marketing.
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Top Five SEM and SEO Myths
A site automatically gets better organic ranking if purchasing ads. As the quote above from Google itself explains, purchasing ads has no impact on organic ranking.
More expensive keywords produce better ROI. Though more expensive keywords are more frequently searched, a diverse approach is best, with medium and low ranking key phrases being part of an ad campaign as well as blogging.
SEM will cause leads to roll in without doing anything else. Left to perform on its own, ads will not just generate a ton of traffic. They do however, act as an active supplement.
Ad group diversity isn't very important. Myopic marketing is a common mistake. Focusing on one channel, one resource won't be as nearly as powerful and successful as taking a more comprehensive approach.
SEO won't work without incorporating paid ads. Many SEO services do both, but the best will put content first, and paid ads second. A blurb outside the organic real estate in search results has no value, that's why blogging is so important.
The truth is, relying only on SEM will actually hurt a site's rankings because there's no value being added to said site. If a business just builds a website, then purchases ads and does nothing else, the site is stagnant and therefore, will not show up in organic search results because it isn't current and has no added value.
An indisputable reality about search engine optimization is that a business can use blogging and social media alone for marketing as well as improving organic ranking without SEM; but the opposite doesn't hold true.
However, using all three, with an emphasis on blogging and leveraging social media, will produce the best results.
