SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the part of SEM (Search Engine Marketing). They both are having the same goal to achieve the visibility in the SERPS.

The difference between SEO and SEM is, in SEO we focus on increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to our website through organic search engine results and SEM focuses on paid advertising, it includes organic search results (SEO) as well as paid search results.

Hey John (Grabbit Media), 

Thanks for asking basic but most important question of internet marketing

The Major difference SEM and SEO that SEO(Search engine optimization) is truly a component of Search Engine Marketing(SEM).
In SEO Web techniques(Meta Tags, Local SEO, Image Optimization) are involved to get better rank in SERP of major search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.
And in the case of SEM various methods are involved to get traffic on your websites such as pay per click (PPC) and advertisements.

To learn more, Visit: Online Marketing

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If you have further queries, please feel free to ask me. My Twitter handle is @iHarishPal

Hi @grabbitmedia,

Thanks for asking this question, it will be very helpful for SEO and SEM beginners.

SEO stands for  search engine optimization and SEM stands for search engine marketing, and these both are different. SEO is a part of SEM.  Generally, SEO involves tactics that are used to increase keyword rank on a various search engine like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. SEM, on the other hand, involves both SEO and paid tactics to get traffic on a website via PPC, Google Adwords, and other paid techniques.

Please check the image below to understand the difference:- 

I Hope this answer will help you!!!

People are often confuse between SEO and SEM but these two online marketing concept could not be more different sets here what seprates them apart. Search engines like Google,Yahoo and Bing use criteria ensure they serve high quality relevant search results for user.

SEO which stand for (search engine optimization) remember SEO lives within SEM is the practice of making your website more attractive to search engines by fulfiling the different criteria its a long -term strategy that involves creating highly relevant content that contains Keyword,quality content, back links getting other sites to link to yours , building a social media platform to get like shares comment and etc. Where as

Sem-(search engine marketing) is the practise of creating adds and bidding against competitors for the chance to have those ads appear as sponserd links when a user do a web search for specific keyword and phrases it may cost money but can get lots of traffic quickly. Both SEO and SEM, can

be hugely beneficial to you business online marketing efforts but this potential payoff requires an investment of time, effort and specialized skills.

As we talk about SEO (Search engine optimization) and SEM ( Search engine marketing ), both terms target to achieve the same objective of getting more traffic to visit the website. They differ in the methodology that they use to achieve those objectives. While SEO concentrates on organic search results, SEM uses the search engines to promote your website or business, making SEM an important follow through component of SEO.

SEM traffic is one of the most important sources of online traffic because it is specifically targeted. People use the Internet through the search engines to find solutions or information about a specific problem or need. As they are likely to see your website as part of their search results, when they click on an ad they are likely to convert. The relevancy of the displayed ads makes SEM traffic more valuable compared to others in terms of conversion.

Hence, it is probably safe to say that SEO and SEM are not competing terms. They complement each other. A website that has a solid SEO buildup and foundation has to rely on the targeted traffic that will come from paid advertising. On the other hand, no SEM campaign will ever roll if a website has no solid SEO platform for how else can the website with the paid ads be found if they are not search-engine optimized? SEO must be the first stage in promoting the site through organic optimization techniques and after the site has ranked well with search engines to ensure visitors find the site will SEM be implemented in order to achieve conversion.  SEO and SEM cannot be effective without each other.

For beginners, it would seem like the two peas in a pod but, as you have already mentioned, SEO is indeed a smaller part of SEM. Here, SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization while SEM is for Search Engine Marketing. Let's see what each of them comprises of in detail over here:  

• SEO: It affects the visibility of the website/web page in a search engine's unpaid search results. The following activities are involved in the SEO process:
  
  Image source: foxvalleywebdesign.com

• SEM: It involves marketing and promotion of websites through advertising and optimization which results in the higher visibility of such websites in search engine results page. The following activities comprises of the whole Search Engine Marketing process:
  
  Image source: pinimg.com
  
  Difference between SEO and SEM:
  
  Image source: bruceclay.com
  
  
  It was a pleasure to answer your query :) Connect to me here for further discussion.

Search engine optimization and search engine marketing can be a confusing concept to grasp.

The SEO industry is continually changing due to the frequent changes made to Google’s algorithm. But, there is one aspect of SEO that stays constant: SEO is made up of On-Page and Off-Page activities.

Where as

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is done to get your website as the first result in Google SERP( Search engine result page) by doing the things which are free and you just have to do (On-page and Off-page)

1. Link Building.
2. Content Distribution in sites like DocStoc(Content sharing site), Scribd(Article sharing site),Slideshare(PPT sharing site), Pinterest (Infographics).
3. Guest Blogging,
4. Making relations with blog posting sites where Domain Authority is High.
5. If you have a Business or Shop then do a google listing, so that people can reach you.
6. Maintain and stay active on each and every social media platform.
7. Get reviews from the user on the website.
8. Connect the auto-responder with the contact form on the website.
9. Do Press release and News submission.
10. Write and post blogs in your websites with relevant and common keywords, but if you want to rank on top, I would suggest for low-hanging keywords which are unique search terms to be in the blog articles.
11. Optimize product description and images.
12. Use Gzip compression to increase the site loading time.
13. Use canonicalized URLs and Permalinks.
14. Weed out Duplicate content.
15. Have a search feature and sitemap on the website.
16. Put trust indicators(Privacy policy, terms&agreement, disclaimer, support contact).
17. Do silo-structuring on the website and also check the internal links which will link the blog and the product page. etc

SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing now comes the paid version, SEM is used highly for getting fast results and many big companies do that to be in rank 1 of the Google SERP. It consists of PPC and SMM. SEM consists of many networks like Display Network, Search Network, Search with display select etc. Basically, SEM is used to be in rank one for a given keyword which is typed mostly by people (common keyword). SMM plays a role in SEM as you have to pay an amount to gain reach on social media platform. It's basically nothing but advertising, that can be tracked and you only pay the exact amount and you get results.

I hope this will help you and good luck. For more follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/Duke26sagnik

Hi John,

As per my knowledge, the answer to your question is, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, whereas SEM is Search Engine Marketing. Both are the essential part of Marketing to get traffic on a website. The difference between SEO and SEM is Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing the keywords visibility on various search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc., whereas Search engine marketing (SEM) is used to increase the website's visibility in search engine result pages through paid methods like PPC, Google Adwords etc.

Thanks

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is basically a component of its larger category, SEM(Search Engine Marketing). Both are aimed to increase the visibility of your website on search engine result pages (SERPS).

The difference between both is that, SEO is focused on maximizing the number of visitors to your website through organic search results, whereas SEM is focused on maximizing the number of visitors to your website through marketing, which includes PPC and other marketing strategies.

Hey

An interesting ques indeed. I'll keep the answer short and too the point. I have seen many people are fond of using both the terms interchangeably, which is terribly wrong. Although the concept seem similar, its is important to understand the uniqueness of both. Major difference between the two is that the SEO is one of the key components of SEM. SMM, PPC are other major components of SEM.

Hope this helps! Have an amazing day

Cheers   

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. SEO is the part of the SEM. In SEO one needs to do proper On Page and Off Page activities for a website. It's long term and free.
 In SEM or PPC (Pay Per Click),you need to pay to Google for displaying your website in Google Ads. It will give you instant results and will help you in driving traffic and brand promotion.Its short term and paid.

Although SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) are sometimes used interchangeably, they both are distinct from each other. SEO is about optimizing a website to increase visibility in organic search engine results. So, we can say the aim behind SEO is to get a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine. The motive behind SEM is also the same, but it goes beyond SEO and includes other strategies too, like PPC advertising.

SEM is about getting both free traffic (SEO) and paid traffic. The benefit of paid search advertising is that it gets you advertising space in the search engine results. If you have heard of Google Adwords, then you must be aware that it allows digital marketers to display their ads in Google search results and pay on pro-rata basis for the number of clicks on your ads.

I hope this helps you understand the difference between SEO and SEM.