There are 2 Search Types: Paid and Unpaid. So whenever you search for something online, it gives you results which are organic search, which means they are natural and are based on various factors. This is what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about.
But many a times you get search results which are paid for. There is a whole auction that I discussed about in previous blogs and a bit more complex. This is all a part of Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
Paid results are nothing but the advertisements that are shown. There are 2 search results which are differentiated in terms of positioning and the font colour. So you can easily make out which result is paid and which is unpaid.
To understand the difference between these two search results, let’s take an example of a street food vendor. So whenever you go to Juhu Chowpaty of any famous beach in India, you see tons of stalls selling famous dishessay for eg., Mumbai’s PavBhaji. There are some vendors and stalls there say for eg., vendor 1 who are very well known, clean and hygienic and have a lot of people around it eating pavbhaji. But there are some vendors say for eg., vendor 2 very less people around and they have hired a boy near his stall who invites all roadside people to eat pavbhaji. So basically he is promoting the stall of pavbhaji and getting customers for it.
Now vendor 1 is the organic search result you get when you search for something online. It has to come on top organically without having to hire someone to promote it. This is what SEO does. It pushes you up organically based on your content, domain and user friendliness of your website.
Whereas vendor 2 is the paid search result which comes on your page in the form of ads. This vendor has to pay someone else to promote his stall and pavbhaji either to spread awareness that he has some good pavbhaji or to attract some more customers. This is what SEM does. You pay Google to feature your ad before an organic result. Thus ensuring that a customer looks at your first and then the organic result.
Also Read: Search Network in Search Engine Marketing
A strong marketing strategy uses both search engine optimization and search engine marketing to get found online. Both SEO and SEM are inter-related, but are not inter-dependent. But one thing is sure you need them both to excel in your digital marketing strategies.
Author: Ankita Mundhra