Very few people consider SEM, Search Engine Marketing, or SEO, Search Engine Optimization, when entering a query in a search engine. These two tools are what allow the search engine to generate the results that show on the corresponding page. While the results are what an individual is generally looking for, SEM and SEO are also responsible for the adverstisements and popups that appear.
As tools for internet advertising, SEM and SEO are often used by website creaters to promote or sell their services. Using the SEM and SEO tools gives the creator’s website more exposure and can also result in a higher rank in the search engines.
SEM and SEO may seem to perform the same task when first considered, but they are very different in how they perform that task. SEM, for example, uses the marketing of the website on different search engines. SEO, on the other hand, considers the way the websites are developed, including structures to find the query in the website and display it in the SERPS, or search engine results pages.
To make it a tad bit complex, SEM & SEO are not the same. As suggested by the names, SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, deals more with how a web-site is marketed to gain exposure in the different search engines available on the net, while SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, deals with how the net creators generate & re-develop the content, quality & structure of their entire web-sites so that whenever an web user types in a particular word in the search tab, their web-sites have a better chance of appearing on the first few search engine results pages (SERPS).
SEO works by utilizing keywords and phrases to make the site seem more relevant to search engines. Each search engine has its own requirements to determine how a site is ranked in relevance for search results, so using SEO is a complex matter of juggling all the different requirements different search engines have while still presenting quality content on your site. Simply spamming keywords or otherwise abusing the systems in place doesn’t work in the long run; sites that exploit the systems too blatantly suffer severe penalties. The trick is in using the keywords and other requirements without reducing your content quality, making a great site that is also easy to find.
So how does SEO come together with SEM? Well, despite having all the commercials provided by SEM, it is truly the SEO that allows the net user to easily & conveniently find what they is looking for. Since the function of SEO is to gain a better ranking in the SERPS, the net creator has to constantly optimize his web-site in order to cater to the needs of the net user & to make it not as hard for spiders or web crawlers to judge whether the website’s content is relevant to the word/s being searched. Optimization is not a simple & easy task. It involves having to restructure the web-site regularly (by editing the html code & meta tags, changing content, reorganizing the site map, generating an not as hard navigational structure, etc.) so as to modify to the rapidly changing demands of the net user. Still, when completed properly, not only does SEO help a web-site become more useful & therefore, more often visited by the net user, it also helps gain more exposure since it increases the website’s chances of gaining a better rank in the SERPS.
SEM and SEO are not quickly implemented tools. Both require the constant diligence and work from the website creator. If the creator has a passion for providing the internet users with what they need, then he will be successful in using the SEM and SEO tools to accomplish that task.




