SEO or SEM: which approach to choose to promote your business online

Do you want to promote your business online to increase your visibility and ultimately your sales? If the answer to this question is yes, you should now familiarize yourself with the different possible methods for your website to appear in the first results of different search engines, including Google.

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Differences between SEO and SEM

Currently, there are two main ways to increase the number of visits to a website; SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Before, SEO was just a part of SEM. Nowadays, the sophistication of the Internet and search engines has resulted in a clear division between the two. SEO and SEM are now subjects in their own right that must take an important place when creating a digital marketing strategy.

In short, SEO can be thought of as SEO, inside the website, and SEM as a more holistic strategy that includes SEO and paid search. Both help a website stand out on search engines like Google, but it's important to fully understand the differences to take advantage of them.

SEO

SEO consists of optimizing your platform so that it is credible and relevant in the eyes of search engines. SEO techniques not only include content creation, but also web design and building awareness in your field. In general, SEO is a long-term job of gaining Google's trust through the relevance of your platform for certain keywords.

It's important to note that SEO takes considerably longer to increase the number of visits to a website. In fact, it normally takes between six months and a year for a page to reach the first search results for a moderately competitive or highly competitive keyword. However, it's easier to appear on the first page of results for keywords for which there isn't much competition. To get more visits to your website more quickly and increase your website's reputation, you can target more keywords that are less often searched for, but normally more precise. This strategy requires more research to find keywords that accurately describe your products or services, but it pays off faster.

The SEM

For its part, SEM, sometimes confused with PPC (pay-per-click) is a paid technique that allows you to create advertisements for specific keywords so that your website can appear at the top of the page of search engine. However, it is important to know that the competition for certain keywords can quickly become fierce and expensive. Indeed, the price of a keyword is determined according to its general use by websites. The more popular a keyword, the more expensive it is. Then, each time someone clicks on your advertisement to access your website, you must pay an amount determined by Google, the famous PPC (pay-per-click). If SEM campaigns aren't carefully planned and tracked, they can quickly become very expensive without necessarily bringing in a lot of money for your business.

Investing in SEO or SEM: how to choose?

Ideally, it's best to invest in both the creation of paid advertising and the improvement of your website's content and online reputation. In some situations, however, it's better to choose just one of these techniques. Here are our tips for choosing the best approach to promoting your business online:

1. Your business keywords are highly competitive: If the only keywords that can describe your products or services are highly competitive, each click from an SEM campaign will cost you several dollars. While paid ads can be worthwhile, it's best to invest in optimizing your platform and creating high-quality content in order to reach Google's top organic results. If you decide to create paid ads anyway, you should strongly determine a daily and monthly budget to avoid very high marketing costs.
2. You are a start-up business: if you have just created your business, your website and your brand name, you will probably have to wait several months, even a year or more, to appear on the first page of Google for your main key words. In this situation, it is often preferable to run paid campaigns in order to quickly attract Internet users to your website. You should still invest in SEO optimization of your platform to lower your digital marketing costs in the future.
3. You are an already well-established company, but with little online visibility: your company and its website have been around for several years already, but your digital platform does not attract many new customers. In this situation, there is not necessarily any urgency to increase your sales. It is therefore preferable to invest in SEO in order to appear in the organic results. Paid campaigns might bring you new customers quickly, but your investment will be lost as soon as you stop paying for your ads.
4. Your site primarily consists of information: Sometimes, some companies use their website simply to offer information to their current and potential customers and increase brand awareness. If this is your case, it's better to invest in organic SEO because paid ads can quickly cost you money and decrease your digital marketing profitability.
5. Your website is mainly an online store: if you sell products on your website, paid advertisements are a good solution to quickly increase your sales. By creating highly targeted campaigns for your products and target customers, people who click on your links are more likely to place an order on your platform.

Conclusion

As you can see, the field of digital marketing can quickly become complex and designing an effective strategy requires consideration of many factors. This is partly why there are experts like LeadLion to guide businesses and advise them on the best approaches to digital marketing.

Generally speaking, we like to use a combination of SEO and SEM in order to achieve results that are both fast and sustainable. If you need help managing your digital marketing, don't hesitate to contact us. It will be our pleasure to accompany you in your conquest of the Web.

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