The difference between SEO and SEM is simply that Search Engine Optimization is part of Search Engine Marketing or Search Marketing as it is widely known. Both processes aim in increasing visibility in search engines.

SEO is about optimizing your website to get higher rankings in the organic search results while SEM goes beyond SEO. It involves other methods that can get you search engine traffic like Paid PPC advertising.

In short, SEM is a paid search strategy while SEO is an organic search strategy.

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of optimizing your website for the purpose of getting free traffic from search engines.

SEO is important because an optimized web site is easily understood by search engine crawlers and this increases the chances of ranking higher in SERPS (search engine results pages).

What is SEM?

SEM is a digital marketing process with the goal of increasing visibility in search engines either by getting organic traffic through  paid traffic through PPC advertising.

Through paid search advertising you essentially buy advertising space in the search engine results. So, instead of trying to rank in one of the top positions organically through SEO and get free traffic, you pay to appear in front of the search results.

Why is SEM traffic important?

SEM traffic  through Paid Ads is considered the most important source of Internet traffic because it is targeted.

SEO and SEM Compared