Do YOU know the difference between SEO and SEM?

If you are brand new to the internet, then you might not have even heard of SEM before. Or you might think that SEO and SEM are synonyms, or interchangeable acronyms.

Well, there's actually a huge difference.

Search Engine Optimization, SEO, refers to making improvements in order to improve your position in the results pages of search engines. The type of improvements you can make are broken down into two different categories, on page optimization and off page optimization.

On page optimization has to do with changes you can make on your own site to improve your position in SERPs (search engine result pages). There are a lot of different improvements you can make, from title tags to alt attributes, there are numerous changes you can make that can and will effect your rankings.

Off page optimization pertains to improvements that you can make that are not on your website. Backlinks are the primary off page factor. Building quality backlinks to your site is a great way to improve your rankings on SERPS.

Search Engine Marketing, SEM, is different, in that it has to do with marketing directly through the search engines in the form of advertisements, or sponsored listings on the search engines. Google's Adwords, Yahoo's Publisher Network, and Search Advertising with Bing are the dominant SEM programs, but there are may others. SEM has proven to be generally more beneficial than other more traditional forms of internet advertising, such as banner ads or pop ups, because they send more targeted traffic your way.

Web marketers use SEM and SEO together to maximize their traffic through both organic search as well as through paid advertising. Any marketing campaign with hopes of being successful should include both, and now that you know the difference is between the two, I hope you will as well.

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