How SEO and SEM Work Together to Drive Results

Scott Morris

Scott Morris

Head of Team Augmentation

SEO and SEM may seem like industry buzzwords that were created to squeeze more money out of your marketing budget.

However, search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) provide vastly different benefits for your website.

When used correctly in conjunction with one another, they can result in a massive increase to your website traffic and conversion and deliver the results you really want to see.

We’ve put together some tips on how to best use SEO and SEM together to drive traffic more efficiently and effectively.

Search Engine Optimisation

SEO drives organic traffic to your website, meaning whenever someone searches for words or phrases (known as ‘search terms’) in a search engine like Google search, the results displayed are the most relevant and valid based on their context and those websites which have been indexed (or analyzed) by the search engine.

Ranking highly in organic search engine search results can be very difficult, especially if your business’ keywords are very common, or highly sought after, for example, ‘technology’. Being seen by your customers when you have so much competition for the top spots in the results page can be challenging, but not impossible.

This is where good quality content comes in. In order to be seen as a ‘valuable’ site in a search engine’s eyes, you must regularly publish content which matches what your audience is looking for.

However, sometimes there is too much other noise and you just can’t compete in the space you are in. That’s where SEM can make the most impact.

Search Engine Marketing

SEM, also known as Search Engine Advertising (SEA) allows you to market your quality content to your targeted audience through paid advertising. There are many different forms of online advertising, such as Google Adwords and social media sponsored posts. Google Adwords campaigns are generally based off a Pay-per-Click (PPC) pricing model, which means that you will only pay when a user clicks on your ad.

With a small amount of budget, your ad can shoot to the top of your audience’s search, resulting in a higher click-through rate to your website.

How they work together

Once you have implemented both successfully, SEO and SEM will work together to boost your results. SEO will deliver ‘free’ traffic to your website, and SEM will ‘buy’ targeted traffic for those pages which don’t naturally rank quite as high. When used strategically, SEO and SEM bring in more traffic than individually.

Furthermore, it is important to note that rolling out SEO strategies is the best way to reach long-term visibility on search engines. SEM however will help you generate traffic instantly, but this will generally stop once you stop spending budget on Adwords.

The most important fact to remember is that without good quality content and a website which your audience loves, your SEO and SEM efforts will be futile, resulting in a waste of resources and a lack of results. These should all be considered as part of a wider online marketing strategy.

Need advice? Contact 4mation now on 02 9213 1300.

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