Fact: 93 per cent of online experiences start with search engines.
The difference between SEO and SEM is that Search Engine Optimisation helps you rank higher in the organic searches on the likes of Google and Bing. Whereas Search Engine Marketing is a paid method of appearing at the top of searches for certain keywords. Both methods have their strengths, and could vastly improve traffic to your website.
SEO
SEO is a great, low-cost, way to improve your Google rankings, however, and has proved a massive success to many companies. SEO is optimising your website and posts for organic searches. Each page on your website should be rich with content and focus on your user's intent (which we will come to later on). Optimising each page will enable not just your homepage, but other pages e.g. product pages to be found in organic searches. Likewise, with content, focus each blog or article on one topic will rank it more highly than if there were 2 or 3 focuses to the blog - blog posts generate 38 per cent of overall traffic.
User intent.
If your business wants to grow its online presence and attract new customers, then you need to focus on the intent and needs of your users aka their pain points and reasons for purchase. The way user intent translates to your SEO strategy is through keywords and search terms used by users who are looking for a particular product or service. Remember - every search query typed into Google is a question.
Different types of SEO
SEO can be split into two sections, on-site SEO and off-site SEO.
On-Site SEO are tasks and techniques you can apply to your web pages and blogs to ensure they are search engine friendly. Using optimised page titles, clear descriptions, well-formatted URLs, all of which contain the keyword are easy ways to boost rankings. Have the correct site structure and coding is also important.
Off-site SEO refers to the process of getting links on other web pages that lead back to your website, generating traffic this way. A great example of this is sharing a post on social media with a link back to your website. As a post is posted on e.g. Twitter, it will drive traffic back to your website.
With SEO, you need to keep on top of and understand Google’s trends and algorithms that are constantly being updated to give users a better experience. With Google frequently introducing new algorithms, it can be difficult to keep up with it all, in fact, 40 per cent of marketers say algorithm changes are the biggest challenges to SEO. There is also no guarantee that your efforts will land you a space on page 1 of the search engines, the results take time to appear, which can get quite frustrating.
SEM
SEM is also known as PPC (Pay Per Click) is all about advertising and quickly getting in front of customers. SEM is a great way to drive traffic to your website, through paid search, you’re essentially buying advertising space in the search results for keywords. Instead of work hard to accommodate Google’s algorithms, you jump straight to the top of searches without the hard work of getting there.
The most well-known are Google Adwords. Through Adwords, you can set a budget and pick the keywords for which you would like to appear. The benefit of Google Adwords is that you only pay for the ad when it’s clicked so you can appear as many times as possible for free (hence the name pay per click).
Why is SEM traffic important?
Targeting. The most important type of traffic. People go to search engines to find a solution to a problem, answer a question or to learn about something. Your ad will appear at the right time when people need answers or a solution, the ad is highly relevant, meaning you’ll get more clicks and, as a result, conversions.
It is this relevancy that gains the most suited traffic to your website. While SEM is about quickly appearing in front of your customers, if the right people aren’t finding your ad, then there will be no conversions, and therefore a poor ROI, 64.6 per cent of people click on Google ads when they are looking to buy an item online.
At bOnline, we offer a range of SEO and SEM services that make it easy for customers to find your site with search engine optimisation. Dominate the local or national search results with our SEO/SEM services and the help of a dedicated expert advisor. We monitor and optimise your campaigns to ensure you are actually generating traffic, leads and sales to improve your business. Discuss your SEO needs, contact our experts here.
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