Web Traffic: SEO vs SEM
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 6:41 am
When we make a query in our preferred search engine, it is normal to ask ourselves: Why do I get these answers and not others? Aware of the millions of results (in just a few seconds) that search engines provide us with relatively similar information. What makes a page stand out above the rest ?
In this sense, the key lies in understanding how search engine rankings work . By understanding this, the strategies that companies carry out to reach those top positions emerge.
Organic and paid traffic are strategies and ways of generating web traffic to a page. It basically involves granting visits through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or through SEM (Search Engine Marketing).These have a common goal, but the way in which they approach it is very different from each other. Below we invite you to learn more about these two terms.
What is organic traffic?
This is known as everything that is achieved through the results collected by search engines and their computer robots. It is the latter who classify and position web pages and their content, according to a ranking of visits and the keywords used.
To gain organic traffic, a website does not only depend on its content, or on its optimization, to position itself among the first results. There are other important factors (technical SEO) for the website to position itself in privileged places in Google searches.
Search engines work with robots that determine precisely those qualities in articles. Googlebot, for example, is a word you will hear mentioned a lot in SEO . These are algorithms that will determine whether your website is relevant or not. At the same time, they determine the position in which your page appears in the search results, for each of the keywords indexed to your website .
How do search engine robots or crawlers position a website?
Organic results appear based on the relevance of the site's content. It also takes into account the relationship between the content and the keywords used by Internet users during their searches.
There are content marketing specialists , who are in high demand lately, who create content in an ideal way so that positioning is “natural” in search engines, knowing very well the search intention of the targets that need to be reached.
Creating relevant, well-structured content with a high educational component is an important task for content marketing.and in turn, inbound marketing is carried out to successfully acquire this type of traffic.
What is paid traffic?
On the other hand, this type of traffic requires a monetary transaction to achieve web positioning. The results that this yields are also known as “inorganic results”. They are mainly obtained through paid advertisements that incorporate, for example, the “pay per click” advertising method.
Anyone who wants to invest in inorganic traffic must access the different platforms available for each search engine.Once inside, campaigns are created, using a specific keyword as a means of traffic. These keywords have different costs, which depend on the volume of traffic they have .
Each time a user clicks on an ad link for a particular Google search, originating from one of these keywords associated with a campaign, the advertising website will pay the search engine. The more competitive the keyword, the higher the amount (bid) to be paid.
How long does it last?
This type of traffic is considered temporary, because it lasts as long as the investment or monetary compensation lasts. In other words, it is not determined by the company itself, but by the providers that provide those visits. Therefore, the number of visits will be determined by the number of transactions and payments that the company can make to achieve positioning.
In this sense,Paid traffic is a term you will hear very often in articles defining and talking about SEM.This search engine optimization is achieved through paid advertising. Google Ads is the main platform used by SEM specialists to publish their ads on Google.
You may be interested in: Tips for creating an effective ad on Google Ads
This tool works the same as in the previous case, using keywords. Have you ever seen a web article that has the word “Advertisement” at the beginning of the title, before the meta description? Well, these are websites that turned to paid traffic to be able to be in that place. That is why we talk about inorganic positioning and even, many times, artificial positioning.
How and where these ads should be deployed, to make the most of the visits philippines telegram they generate (Google Ads generate approximately 20% of all clicks), is an important task that companies must devise to obtain a return ( ROI ) from digital marketing strategies .
What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
Understanding that web traffic is the number of visits that a particular website has, both organic and paid traffic simply represent two ways of acquiring that user traffic. Therefore, it cannot be stipulated that the biggest difference between one and the other is the absence or presence of investment .
SEO is a team of qualified professionals who manage the content and make it more attractive. In this sense, a salary is budgeted for these positions. Content marketing specialists, as we have already mentioned, constitute a monetary investment for companies because it is precisely a boost for their sales.
The big difference between both types of web traffic lies in the intrinsic strategies and platforms with which they are carried out.In our attempt to separate SEM from SEO, we can also highlight that the former is a short-term strategy and the latter is not.
The importance of a good strategy
A strategy to increase our SEO can take months to be successful and generate profitability. It is a positioning that seeks to be authentic, where interaction and social interest clearly influence. SEM, on the other hand, is applied when short-term objectives are to be achieved.
An example of this is promoting events and/or crowdfunding campaigns. Here we are talking about a fast process that requires paid advertising in order to meet the objectives set in terms of attendance and donor numbers (based on the example).
Another way to identify when a search result is organic and when it is paid is to see if the web pages you find in your results have the word “Ad” around them.This is a key indicator of the type of ranking a particular website has. However, for organic SEO results, there is no tag and they are usually displayed immediately after the first sponsored links.
In organic traffic, keywords are limited; and paid keywords are unlimited.This is mainly because when it comes to SEO, it is common to work with one keyword and its slight variations (singular and plural, with and without preposition, etc.) for each page.
If we try to use different keywords for each page , we will find that in the end the content we want to distribute is not really relevant to any of them. This would be like trying to work on different topics in a single article, when the ideal is to focus on a single topic for each one and go into as much depth as possible.
How many words should you use for a paid traffic strategy?
On the other hand,In all paid traffic, since it is an auction system, you can choose all the keywords with which the company or that particular content wants to be identified.Of course, those keywords that the website receives traffic for will be the most effective. But as such, even if you have an idea of what the most appropriate words might be at the beginning, there is no limit to what you can use.
Organic and paid traffic represent two methodologies for achieving the same goal: web positioning.It is about understanding each of them and their differences, in order to know which one is best to carry out for a particular content or marketing campaign. Understanding these strategies in detail, according to a company's business model, is also vital to taking advantage of them.
In this sense, the key lies in understanding how search engine rankings work . By understanding this, the strategies that companies carry out to reach those top positions emerge.
Organic and paid traffic are strategies and ways of generating web traffic to a page. It basically involves granting visits through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or through SEM (Search Engine Marketing).These have a common goal, but the way in which they approach it is very different from each other. Below we invite you to learn more about these two terms.
What is organic traffic?
This is known as everything that is achieved through the results collected by search engines and their computer robots. It is the latter who classify and position web pages and their content, according to a ranking of visits and the keywords used.
To gain organic traffic, a website does not only depend on its content, or on its optimization, to position itself among the first results. There are other important factors (technical SEO) for the website to position itself in privileged places in Google searches.
Search engines work with robots that determine precisely those qualities in articles. Googlebot, for example, is a word you will hear mentioned a lot in SEO . These are algorithms that will determine whether your website is relevant or not. At the same time, they determine the position in which your page appears in the search results, for each of the keywords indexed to your website .
How do search engine robots or crawlers position a website?
Organic results appear based on the relevance of the site's content. It also takes into account the relationship between the content and the keywords used by Internet users during their searches.
There are content marketing specialists , who are in high demand lately, who create content in an ideal way so that positioning is “natural” in search engines, knowing very well the search intention of the targets that need to be reached.
Creating relevant, well-structured content with a high educational component is an important task for content marketing.and in turn, inbound marketing is carried out to successfully acquire this type of traffic.
What is paid traffic?
On the other hand, this type of traffic requires a monetary transaction to achieve web positioning. The results that this yields are also known as “inorganic results”. They are mainly obtained through paid advertisements that incorporate, for example, the “pay per click” advertising method.
Anyone who wants to invest in inorganic traffic must access the different platforms available for each search engine.Once inside, campaigns are created, using a specific keyword as a means of traffic. These keywords have different costs, which depend on the volume of traffic they have .
Each time a user clicks on an ad link for a particular Google search, originating from one of these keywords associated with a campaign, the advertising website will pay the search engine. The more competitive the keyword, the higher the amount (bid) to be paid.
How long does it last?
This type of traffic is considered temporary, because it lasts as long as the investment or monetary compensation lasts. In other words, it is not determined by the company itself, but by the providers that provide those visits. Therefore, the number of visits will be determined by the number of transactions and payments that the company can make to achieve positioning.
In this sense,Paid traffic is a term you will hear very often in articles defining and talking about SEM.This search engine optimization is achieved through paid advertising. Google Ads is the main platform used by SEM specialists to publish their ads on Google.
You may be interested in: Tips for creating an effective ad on Google Ads
This tool works the same as in the previous case, using keywords. Have you ever seen a web article that has the word “Advertisement” at the beginning of the title, before the meta description? Well, these are websites that turned to paid traffic to be able to be in that place. That is why we talk about inorganic positioning and even, many times, artificial positioning.
How and where these ads should be deployed, to make the most of the visits philippines telegram they generate (Google Ads generate approximately 20% of all clicks), is an important task that companies must devise to obtain a return ( ROI ) from digital marketing strategies .
What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
Understanding that web traffic is the number of visits that a particular website has, both organic and paid traffic simply represent two ways of acquiring that user traffic. Therefore, it cannot be stipulated that the biggest difference between one and the other is the absence or presence of investment .
SEO is a team of qualified professionals who manage the content and make it more attractive. In this sense, a salary is budgeted for these positions. Content marketing specialists, as we have already mentioned, constitute a monetary investment for companies because it is precisely a boost for their sales.
The big difference between both types of web traffic lies in the intrinsic strategies and platforms with which they are carried out.In our attempt to separate SEM from SEO, we can also highlight that the former is a short-term strategy and the latter is not.
The importance of a good strategy
A strategy to increase our SEO can take months to be successful and generate profitability. It is a positioning that seeks to be authentic, where interaction and social interest clearly influence. SEM, on the other hand, is applied when short-term objectives are to be achieved.
An example of this is promoting events and/or crowdfunding campaigns. Here we are talking about a fast process that requires paid advertising in order to meet the objectives set in terms of attendance and donor numbers (based on the example).
Another way to identify when a search result is organic and when it is paid is to see if the web pages you find in your results have the word “Ad” around them.This is a key indicator of the type of ranking a particular website has. However, for organic SEO results, there is no tag and they are usually displayed immediately after the first sponsored links.
In organic traffic, keywords are limited; and paid keywords are unlimited.This is mainly because when it comes to SEO, it is common to work with one keyword and its slight variations (singular and plural, with and without preposition, etc.) for each page.
If we try to use different keywords for each page , we will find that in the end the content we want to distribute is not really relevant to any of them. This would be like trying to work on different topics in a single article, when the ideal is to focus on a single topic for each one and go into as much depth as possible.
How many words should you use for a paid traffic strategy?
On the other hand,In all paid traffic, since it is an auction system, you can choose all the keywords with which the company or that particular content wants to be identified.Of course, those keywords that the website receives traffic for will be the most effective. But as such, even if you have an idea of what the most appropriate words might be at the beginning, there is no limit to what you can use.
Organic and paid traffic represent two methodologies for achieving the same goal: web positioning.It is about understanding each of them and their differences, in order to know which one is best to carry out for a particular content or marketing campaign. Understanding these strategies in detail, according to a company's business model, is also vital to taking advantage of them.