seo

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” Simply put, SEO is the process of improving your website to increase its visibility in Google, Microsoft Bing, and other search engines when people search for:

Products you sell.

Services you offer.

Information on topics in which you have deep expertise and/or experience.

The more visible your pages are in search results, the more likely you are to be found and clicked on. Ultimately, the goal of search engine optimization is to attract website visitors who become customers, clients, or an audience that keeps coming back.

What you’ll learn in this guide:

How SEO is different from SEM and PPC

Why SEO is important

SEO types and specializations

How SEO works

How to learn SEO

How is SEO different from SEM and PPC?

SEM and PPC are two other common terms you’ll read a lot about here on Search Engine Land and hear in the larger search engine marketing community.

Read on to learn more about these two terms and how they relate to SEO.

SEO vs. SEM
SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing – or more commonly known as Search Marketing.

Search engine marketing is a form of digital marketing. It is an umbrella term for the combination of SEO and PPC activities aimed at increasing traffic via organic search and paid search.

Simply put, search engine marketing is the process of gaining traffic and visibility from search engines through paid and unpaid efforts.

So how are SEO and SEM different? Technically, they aren’t different – ​​SEO is simply half of SEM:

SEO = increasing organic traffic from search engines.
SEM = driving organic and paid traffic from search engines.

Now, this is where it gets a little confusing.

Nowadays, many people use SEM interchangeably with PPC (which we’ll talk about in the next section).

This idea seems to undermine SEO. However, SEO is marketing, just like PPC is marketing.

Here’s the best way to think about SEO and SEM:

Think of SEM as a coin. SEO is one side of that coin. PPC is on the other side.

SEO vs. PPC
PPC stands for pay-per-click – a type of digital marketing where advertisers pay when one of their ads is clicked.

Basically, advertisers bid on specific keywords or phrases that they want their ads to appear for in search engine results. When a user searches for one of those keywords or phrases, the advertiser’s ad appears among the top results.

So again, if we think of search engine marketing as a coin, SEO and PPC are two sides of the same coin – SEO is the unpaid side, PPC is the paid side.

One more important point: It’s important to never think of it as “SEO vs. PPC” (i.e. which is better) because they are complementary channels. It’s not an either/or question – always choose both (as long as your budget allows).

As mentioned, the terms SEM and PPC are used interchangeably in the industry. However, that’s not the case here on Search Engine Land.

Whenever we mention “SEM,” it’s because we’re referring to both SEO (organic search) and PPC (paid search).

If you’re curious about the history of how “SEM” became “PPC” to the exclusion of SEO, you can dig deeper into these articles:

How Wikipedia turned PPC / paid search into SEM
Does SEM = SEO + CPC still fit together?

Why is SEO important?

SEO is an important marketing channel. First of all, organic search delivers 53% of all website traffic.

That’s one of the main reasons why the global SEO industry is expected to reach a staggering $122.11 billion by 2028. SEO drives real business results for brands, companies, and organizations of all sizes.

Whenever people want to go somewhere, do something, find information, research, or buy a product/service – their journey typically starts with a search.

But today, search is incredibly fragmented. Users can search on traditional web search engines (e.g. Google, Microsoft Bing), social platforms (e.g. YouTube, TikTok), or retailer websites (e.g. Amazon).

In fact, 61% of online shoppers in the U.S. start their product search on Amazon, compared to 49% who start on a search engine like Google. Also notable from the same research:

32% start on Walmart.com.

20% start on YouTube.

19% start on Facebook.

15% start on Instagram.

11% start on TikTok.

Trillions of searches are conducted each year. Search is often the primary source of traffic for websites, which is why it is imperative

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