A Rapid Development Web Site client recently asked me if there is any difference between search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). And yes, in fact there is a difference.

While both methods focus on driving traffic to your web site through search engines, SEO centers on driving organic (aka: free) traffic by improving natural rankings and SEM drives paid traffic by utilizing the various search engine advertising methods.

I generally recommend that small business owners employ a combination of SEO and SEM in their marketing efforts, and here’s why…

From the web site visitor’s perspective, SEO is akin to going to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk while your baby is screaming and crying in your arms. All you want to do is grab a gallon of milk and get out of there as quickly as possible, so you stop at the first grocery store you can find.

But as soon as you walk into the store, you find yourself in the produce aisle. You look to your left, but all you see is bread and other baked goods. You look to your right and you see boxes of cereal and dry goods. No milk to be found – at least you can’t seem to find it quickly and easily. Your baby is hungry; her crying is causing dirty looks from other shoppers.

But then, through the store window, you see a flashing, neon-lit billboard for the SEM-Mart across the street. The billboard obviously cost a fortune, you think to yourself. But it keeps blinking cute little pictures of neon milk gallons, so it must have what you’re looking for. Might as well give it a try. And you leave the SEO grocery store without any milk.

When you enter the SEM-Mart, you immediately find yourself in the dairy department. The exact brand of milk you want is right in front of you and the cashier is only 2 steps away. You quickly grab the milk and check out within minutes and you head to your car before your crying baby can cause any disturbance. (And before you can buy any additional groceries.)

But now imagine that it’s three days later. Your baby is home with Grandma and you have a few leisurely hours to yourself. You think it would be fun to try out your culinary skills, so you head to the nearest grocery store to pick out a few things.

You’re not exactly sure what you feel like cooking, so you meander the aisles trying to get some ideas. You come across your favorite candy bar. You grab one for an afternoon snack when you notice the in-store coffee bar is giving away free samples. You casually sip a miniature vanilla latte, and you realize it would make a great morning pick-me-up. You make a mental note to stop by this same SEO Grocery Store on your way to work tomorrow to grab a full-sized vanilla latte.

As you meander over to the produce department, you notice a buy-one-get-one-free advertisement for asparagus. You grab 2 bundles of asparagus, thinking they would be a great side dish for dinner that evening; but of course you’ll need to make some hollandaise sauce. Hhmmm, better grab all the ingredients.

You spend forty-five minutes nonchalantly strolling through the store, grabbing a few items here and there, until your shopping cart is packed full. You head to the check out and the clerk hands you a coupon good for your next visit, which you plan to use the following morning when you stop by for your vanilla latte.

It’s obvious to see why an entrepreneur should concentrate on SEO – the techniques are relatively easy to implement (although some are definitely time-consuming) and the resulting traffic is free. SEO techniques include (among other things):

• using keywords in page headlines
• writing compelling meta description tags
• creating an XML sitemap
• developing a link-building strategy

SEO traffic often browses through your web site, visiting various pages, trying to decide what they’re interested in, checking out your various offers. This type of traffic comes to your site through your natural search rankings.

Unfortunately, natural search rankings are difficult, if not impossible, to control. Since your home page is generally considered the “authority page” of your site, it’s often the one that gets ranked for your keywords, so it’s usually the page that SEO traffic lands on first. But your home page is probably generic and might not be as tightly focused on the information your visitor is looking for.

Studies show that you have approximately 3 seconds to grab your web site visitor’s attention. If he can’t find what he’s looking for within 3 seconds, chances are he’ll leave and look elsewhere. As you can see, driving traffic to your home page can be hit-or-miss as far as conversions are concerned.

On the other hand, SEM allows you the ability to drive traffic to an exactly-targeted page. When you create specific landing pages for each of your paid search campaigns, you have complete control over the information or products that your visitor sees. By giving the user exactly what he’s looking for, you can encourage clicks and increase conversions.

Search engine marketing techniques can include:

• pay per click advertising
• paid directory inclusion
• traditional banner ads
• ad network participation

Search engine marketing generally has an immediate pay-off. While it could take days, weeks, or even months to start generating organic traffic, your paid ad will be available as soon as you decide to go live. Your SEM efforts lead to immediate traffic, and, if you’ve done things correctly, immediate conversions.

In my opinion, the SEO versus SEM debate should not be an either/or question. SEO techniques allow you to attract broad-focused visitors who will hopefully spend some time “meandering the aisles” of your web site, grabbing your free reports, sampling your articles, and bookmarking your page so they can return again tomorrow.

Your SEM efforts, on the other hand, aim to attract the focused buyer, the one with credit card in hand, who knows exactly what he is looking for, who is ready and willing to make a purchase, who doesn’t have time to browse around.

 If you’re serious about marketing your business on line, generating significant traffic and increasing your bottom line, you should be utilizing both search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

You might also be interested in:

• Ready To Start Your Own Search Engine Optimization?
• How To Grow Your Business In A Bad Economy
• Affordable SEO Quick Fix in Minutes
• Affordable SEO and the Truth Behind Java Script Menus
• What is Search Engine Optimization

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 6:46 am and is filed under Affordable SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.