[Article] What is SEO and how is it different to SEM?

[Bellboy]

SEO VS SEM - What is the difference between search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM)?

Basically, SEO is improving the website using "natural" methods to achieve a good listing on the various search engines. This could mean things as: good page titles, a sitemap for the engines to navigate your site, quality "meta data" that describes your site, relevant "content", etc.

SEM however, refers to the active marketing of your web site, your company and your services for the search engines to find. Options include paid advertising such as Google AdWords as well as free advertising using electronic newsletters, on line press releases, etc. You can even use the latest networking sites like Facebook and YouTube.

In summary, both are good and relevant for any web site. And each web site and company is unique so you should take an open approach and start small and move forward from there.

You can find out more about our SEO and SEM services for small business here:

http://www.bellboymedia.co.za/services/managed-services/sem.html

[BryanCasson]

I also like to mention that SEO improves your results over time with a constant rise and SEM is usually a quick fix which results in large spikes in traffic for as long as a campaign runs followed by declining results once the campaign ends.