Which is better SEO or SEM?

Planning for digital marketing? But confused about which one is better, SEO or SEM?

Well, in short, both are important depending on your goal. Whether you need the best SEO services or perform SEM, you must first decide your ultimate business goal—what you want to achieve.

Sounds confusing? You don’t have to be anymore!

In this blog, we’ll walk you through SEO and SEM and understand which one is better for your business. Let’s get started…

Table of Contents

Understanding SEO and SEM

Before you learn which strategy to carry out, you must know what they mean. Thus you can figure out how they will help boost sales and increase brand awareness.

What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

SEO is an effective technique for improving website ranking by driving organic traffic to it. While performing SEO, you need to make changes to your website as per search engine guidelines.

For example, you can add valuable content to your site. As a result, you get more traffic to your website and expect to see it on the first page of the search result.

However, Google considers different aspects of ranking a website. Hence, just writing some blogs won’t do it.

Some of the main SEO activities may include:

Technical SEO
On-Page SEO
Off-page SEO

What is SEM (Search Engine Marketing)?

Before, SEM was an umbrella term; both SEO and PPC ads were considered SEM activities. Now, SEM has changed, and it only includes PPC ads.

What are PPC ads? It’s a marketing tactic to immediately get your audiences’ attention in the thousands of search engine result pages (SERPs). This includes – making and optimizing different ads within a budget allotted.

There are a few more things you would do in SEM, including ads that come under PPC ads—

PPC ads
- Bidding
- Quality score
- Ad copy
- Account management

SEO vs. SEM: Which one is better for your business?

As mentioned earlier, both use useful for your business. But that depends on some leading factors.

Let’s find out how they are beneficial.

Your business goals

Like other businesses, of course, you will have different goals for your business, such as – long-term and short-term goals. Basing the plans, you decide between SEO and SEM.

SEO: It’s for long-term growth. For example, you can improve your website to build credibility and awareness of your business.

SEM: It’s suitable for short-term goals. You can use it for testing new products/services. By this, you can expand the monthly sales.

Type of your business

By ‘type,’ we mean some businesses are already established, and some have just launched. And their digital marketing plan will be different

SEO: If your business is established, you will need a strong online presence. People search for you on the internet, so you do SEO to get organic traffic.

SEM: You have just started the business and have almost NO online presence. So, make yourself visible in the SERPs.

Your budget

Big businesses will have more competition and will have a larger budget. On the contrary, small businesses will have to plan differently.

SEO: If you have a big business, you have a competitive keyword. So, you plan for SEO that requires sizeable money. That’s because your cost per click will be higher.

SEM: Small businesses will have less budget. But that doesn’t mean your market is not competitive. You can choose SEM as per your budget.

Buying cycle of your product/ service

The purchasing process will be different for businesses. Some have a long cycle, and some are shorter.

SEO: If your product/ service has a longer buying cycle, you need SEO. In a longer process, people research online, read reviews and blogs, then compare the value.

SEM: If people heavily search for the product/ service for your niches, you need SEM. That means your customers know what they want to buy. All they need are options for buying.

Your competition

You choose SEO or SEM, depending on the competition.

SEO: If your market is less competitive, you will have the opportunity to upload organic content with SEO.

SEM: Your marketing could have stiff competition. In that case, you invest in SEM.

Current status of your website

The condition of your website tells a lot about what you need.

SEO: If your website is already optimized and fast. Also, if your website receives satisfactory organic traffic, you can perform SEO again. And you need to keep on combining it with high-quality content.

SEM: Your website might be slow. Besides, you don’t have much content, and the SEO needs to improve. In such as case, you do SEM with SEO.

The bottom line

We hope now you can decide which one you need. Additionally, you might find out you need both. Combining SEO and SEM in your digital marketing strategy will deliver you an outstanding results in sales.

Understanding SEO and SEM