By Neil Patel

These terms are two of the most important in the digital landscape, but what makes them different?

As you may have guessed, the “SE” portion in SEO and SEM are the same.

Everything pertaining to search engines (SE), such as traffic quality and quantity, falls into that SE category.

Since there are 3.5 billion Google searches made daily worldwide, I think it’s best I explain it this way:

Google search results contain both paid search results and organic search results. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) attracts traffic organically, while Search Engine Marketing (SEM) attracts traffic with various paid search ads.

The back and forth between SEO vs. SEM in the world of digital marketing can be confusing, but you’ll have everything down by the time I’m done.

I’ll even explain how both can work together.

Let’s start with the basics.

What Is SEO?

Optimization puts the O in SEO.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process designed to improve the ranking of a website or online content for high search results on Google.

The key difference between SEO vs. SEM is online content will need optimizing to rank higher on Google organically.

Take a look at it like this: if someone’s search query was ‘glazed donuts,’ they’re likely looking for a donuts shop, ingredients, or a recipe.

If I was a restaurant or food blogger, I’d make sure my website or content was optimized to meet the user’s search intent. Strategizing like this will help you rank above other websites organically without paying for ads.

There are also 3 ways to break down SEO to gain more traffic:

• On-page
• Off-page
• Technical

It’s essential first to understand how search engines function before you can start to get your content to rank higher. This is how you build the foundation of a proper long-term SEO strategy.

My main goal is to give you the ins and outs of how to optimize your content to rank higher on Google and attract more eyes to your blogs and pages.

On-Page, Off-Page, and Technical SEO

The core elements of SEO consist of these 3 main paths:

Building content for on-page SEO works to raise your ranking. This comes down to including keywords in your on-page content, producing high-quality content frequently, making sure that your metadata is written effectively and incorporates rich keywords.

Off-page SEO optimizes spaces outside of your site, such as building backlinks. Building relationships and producing content that others want to share requires this aspect of the SEO formula. Even though it requires a lot of labor, your SEO success depends on it.

As the name suggests, technical SEO is the process of improving aspects of a website that don’t involve content. To name a few examples, this would entail the structured data, crawlability, site speed, and …read more

Source:: Kiss Metrics Blog

Author: Aaron