An all-you-need-to-know guide about Google SEO / SEM, Why your business will PREVAIL when applying both to your digital marketing practices, and How to do it RIGHT.
About the Author
Trinity Vasquez is a third-year university student who is currently studying for a Bachelors’s degree in Communications and Media, majoring in Marketing and Advertising and minoring in Public Relations. Trinity is hopeful to embark on a career path specialising in Public Relations after she graduates in the summer of 2021. Trinity is a distinguished student with a distinction average who thrives on being challenged within new environments.
Google SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and SEM (Search engine marketing) is essentially reciprocal, meaning they are both two differing sides of the same coin.. despite the common misconception that the two concepts are considered to be polar opposites.
As marketing professionals, we have a responsibility to understand these two concepts as two separate parts and as one whole. So the next question to ask ourselves as is: How do the two relate and work together? In order to understand this question and why your business will greatly benefit from the application of both SEO and SEM into your digital marketing plan, we must first discuss the background information associated with each concept.
So what is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation describes the practice of increasing or improving the overall quantity and quality of traffic and visibility to a businesses online presence e.g a website.
Search engines are automated computer databases which enable individuals to find the answer to the answer to their inquiry, this is achievable through processes called ‘crawling’, ‘indexing’ and ‘ranking’. These processes describe the analysing, storing and ordering of all the data available on the internet in order to effectively ensure that the topic, need or question asked is provided with the answer an individual is specifically seeking whether that may be a business, products, directory or services provided online.
Search engines will assess factors on a website, such as keywords, tags, link titles and patterns, quality of user experience as well as the quality of the content. If your business is able to optimise your website with the intent of successfully utilising the search engine it will not only allow the business to achieve a strengthened online presence and consumer relationship but also allow for further growth of the business itself. What kind of business wouldn’t want to be able to achieve an increase in visibility and reach, potentioal high conversion rates, more traffic and a user-friendly website experience? In comparison to traditional marketing strategies which result in a conversion rate of 1.7%, SEO strategies provides a conversion rate of 14.6%.
Although SEO can be costly to maintain as well as difficult to track all the keywords used by the target audience, businesses who effectively implement SEO practices paired with quality content will reap the benefits. A website that was not that lucky is CNN… they partook in an unethical SEO practice titled ‘Bait and Switch’. CNN essentially decieved users with a title that did not match the article headline in order to drive traffic toward their website page due to information gaps. This is exactly what NOT to do.
On the other hand, I did some online shopping and decided to test out the SEO of clothing businesses. Princess Polly has a very active online presence especially on social media. Their website is easy to use, never takes a long time loading and has the HIGHEST quality pictures which will make you wanna buy everything on the website. Despite searching various terms associated with clothes, they were always near the top of the first page! This is exactly what your business NEEDS to do.
Successful SEO can allow digital marketing capabilities to be intensified as it enforces the establishment of credibility and trustworthiness within a brand. It is the consumers expectation that results of their search will be correct and reliable and when a brand ranks high in search results, this trust is initiated, without implementation of SEO this trust would be obsolete.
Enough about SEO, let’s start talking about SEM…
Search engine marketing refers to paid search advertising which involves creating targeted ads that rank top-of-page on search engine results page (SERP). Paid search ads are tied to specific keywords, for example, when typing in a phrase or keywords into the search bar, you may notice the first few suggestions or collection of entires featured the terms “AD” or “sponsored content”.
The most common prominent form of SEM is a pay-per-click campaign. A pay-per-click advertisement or campaign is when the brand or business is charged each time a user clicks onto the ad link. There are a variety of search engine marketing platforms however, Google Ads is the most popular, with Bing Ads coming in second. On these platforms, you will be able to access analytics provided by the platform which will allow you to assess the performance of these paid advertisements. Through the implementation of SEO practices that are designed and targeted well, your business can successfully increase visibility in search engine results pages, which can ultimately lead to an increased number of site visitors and conversions which will enable your business to increase the success of digital marketing performance.
Paid advertising grants your business the luxury to specify exactly who you are targeting, what time of day you want your ad to appear and allows you to choose your rank in the AD component of SERP. Despite being costly and time consuming, SEM is a valuable digital marketing strategy because you will be able to see the results of your newly published advertisement within hours meaning that this will allow you to identify the audiences, demographics and behaviours that are generating more actions on your ads. SEM will allow your business to alter the ad accordingly or completely curate the campaign again based on the response of the last one to maximise the full potential.
In order to not receive a ban from the Google ad platforms, your business needs to ensure that the quality of content is high, you are not duplicating another ad and ensuring that the guidelines implemented by search engine platforms are followed accordingly.
Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way… There is one question left, Why should I implement both of these digital marketing practices?
It is undeniable that both SEO and SEM are able to produce valuable results. However, as a collective SEO and SEM have the same fundamental goal: To increase the drive in quality online traffic to your business’ online presence.
Through the curation of an effective marketing plan that includes both simultaneous use of SEO and SEM practices, your business will experience an enhancement in the implentation and understanding of keywords, a strong brand presence constituted through brand visibility and consistent growth. These three factors are all related and contribute to an increase in website traffic.
The purpose of SEO is the produce essential organic results that are designed to establish trust throughout the target market as well as designed to be sustained over a long period of time this strategy does however require patience and consistent efforts. SEM, on the other hand is able to produce results that draw the target market to the website in a short amount of time which is reliant on quality ad curation in order to achieve a conversion of quick sales into loyal consumers.
SEM is able to quickly capitalise on targeted keywords and consumers whilst SEO is able to provide a foundation to convert and retain the traffic generated by the previously implemented SEM strategies. When your business is considering one or the other, think about how effectively intertwining both SEO and SEM techniques will produce a stronger digital marketing performance and noticeable results which will benefit the business astronomically.
I have a desire for success, do you?
A combined SEO/SEM campaign will get you that.
trinityvasquez.home.blog 