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Businesses of all sizes are realizing the importance of online marketing, especially through search engines. Today, people are more likely to find your website through a search engine than going directly to it. This begs the question too often asked in digital marketing: “Should I use SEO or SEM to bring more traffic to my website?”
Two of the most common traffic strategies pitted against each other – paid clicks and organic clicks. Which one is better for your business?
Defining SEO and SEM
Before we get into any details, we must know what separates the two. At the end of the day, it might be difficult to decide on a strategy unless you know the difference and advantages of these two platforms.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about ranking your website through natural/organic search results for your target keywords on popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM), also referred to as Pay-per-click (PPC), is all about paying for online advertising space for specific target keywords on SERPs. In SEM campaigns, you only pay for every click on your ad and choose to reach your target audience through Search Ads, Display Ads or even Youtube Ads.
SEO or SEM: Which is more expensive?
The main difference between SEO and SEM is that traffic coming from organic SEO is free while traffic from SEM campaigns comes at cost-per-click. On the surface, SEO sounds like a more practical approach. The biggest advantage of SEO is that it brings your website better traffic with more trustworthy leads.
However, there’s a lot of competition for keywords and you will need nothing short of a website designed for success to get to the first page of search engine results. In fact, there are no shortcuts in SEO as this type of campaign would normally require at least six (6) months to rank organically in your preferred keywords.
On the other hand, SEM depends on several factors. From keyword popularity, the number of advertisers competing for that keyword, your competitors who have already have ads for that keyword and a lot more.
In SEO, you cannot pay to get on the first page of online search results. However, you would most likely need to get help from a professional to keep track and work on your SEO strategies.
With SEM, you only pay when people click on your ad and you can control how much you can pay.
SEO or SEM: Which brings more traffic?
Organic traffic through SEO weighs more than website traffic from your SEM campaigns. If you can manage to bring your website to the top of the search results for your keyword, you will end up getting more traffic than having to pay for it.
Paid ads get more clicks than organic searches, but they can also end up being more expensive depending on your target audience and number of clicks you wish to achieve from your SEM campaign.
In terms of results, SEO is better for long-term strategies. SEO will not produce results overnight; and ranking in SERP’s means that you must prove to search engines that you have authority in your industry. Once search engines understand what your business is all about and recognize its authority, things will go a lot smoother from there on.
SEM works better for websites that would benefit from converting traffic to sales. Unlike SEO, a well-targeted SEM campaign doesn’t take long before it starts churning out a considerable ROI. However, if your site isn’t converting as well, your landing pages may need some optimization (SEO) before you see results.
At the end of the day, deciding between SEO and SEM campaigns would generally boil down to identifying your company’s objectives, budget, and your corresponding timeline to reach your desired results.
To know more about SEO and SEM strategies and how it can help your business, contact us at info@irepublic.ph or +63 2 636 8050
Source:
reliablesoft.net
inboundmarketingagents.com