SEO vs SEM: What’s the Difference? Costs, Strategies + Timelines

SEO and SEM are digital marketing strategies that improve visibility on search engine results pages. Search engine optimization leverages organic techniques, while search engine marketing combines organic and paid strategies for a holistic approach.

The Google search results page is separated into two different categories: organic results and sponsored results.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website to rank higher in the organic results for relevant keywords.

Search engine marketing (SEM), on the other hand, leverages SEO as well as pay-per-click (PPC) marketing techniques to appear in the sponsored and organic results.

So which is best: A targeted organic strategy or a hybrid approach?

Here, SEO expert Matt Smith shines a light on the key differences between the two — and when to focus on SEO or use SEM in your marketing strategy.

What are the differences between SEM and SEO?

The primary difference between SEO and SEM is that SEO focuses on earning traffic through organic search optimization, while SEM uses paid and organic strategies together.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO is the practice of optimizing the content, layout, speed, and backend organization of a website to rank higher in the search engine results.

The goal is to rank highly in the organic search results for relevant search queries.

SEO marketing can be broken into three categories:

1. On-page SEO

On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing elements on your website, including:

• Keyword research
• Website content
• Meta descriptions
• Title tags
• URLs
• Images
• Internal linking structure

2. Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO is the promotion, outreach, link building, and other efforts you take to promote your content on other sites.

This allows your brand to build a reputation, establish authority, and optimize factors like high-quality backlinks, which involves content and information about your business on third-party websites.

The main focus is to build high-quality backlinks from other reputable websites.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO techniques improve the backend components of a website so it performs optimally, is easier for search engines to crawl and index, and provides a better user experience.

This involves:

• Optimizing site speed
• implementing structured data markup
• Ensuring proper XML sitemaps
• Optimizing for mobile devices
• Addressing issues like duplicate content, broken links, and server errors

Together, these elements are the bulk of what we consider SEO, which is a significant component of SEM.

Search engine marketing (SEM)

SEM is the practice of using paid search ads and SEO together to make a brand’s website more visible on the search engine results page (SERP).

The goal is to rank at the top of the organic search results and appear in the sponsored section above the organic results for maximum visibility.

Aside from the SEO techniques mentioned above, SEM incorporates PPC advertising strategies, including:

• Keyword research and targeting
• Ad creation
• Landing page optimization
• Bid management
• Audience targeting
• Remarketing

The similarities between SEO and SEM

SEO is often part of an SEM strategy. Therefore, SEO is a subcategory of SEM, alongside PPC.

“SEO and SEM are digital marketing strategies aimed at increasing website visibility and driving traffic from search engines,” says Smith.

He adds that SEO focuses on optimizing a website’s content and structure to improve organic search rankings, while SEM involves paid advertising to appear in search engine results.

“SEO is a long-term strategy with no direct cost,” Smith explains, “while SEM requires a budget for keyword bidding and offers more immediate visibility through paid ads.”

SEO vs. SEM vs. PPC

If SEM is a Venn diagram, then SEO is one circle, PPC is on the other.

SEM is where the two overlap.

The key differences between SEO and PPC come down to four factors:

1. Cost
2. Time
3. Longevity
4. Keywords

Let’s break them down.

1. Cost

PPC involves paying the search engine for a spot in the search results.

SEO, on the other hand, only requires paying for the people, agencies, and tools that assist in your marketing efforts to rank higher — rather than giving money to Google, Bing, or Yahoo directly.

How much do SEO and PPC cost?

You can expect to pay anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 and up per month. SEO can be performed for “free” or cheap, though the results you get may not be effective.

And while you can run PPC ads cheaply by setting a low cost-per-click (CPC) bid and maintaining a high Quality Score, the paid results may be as small as the investment.

Large brands have large budgets, befitting the number of digits on all the numbers they use. Therefore, small businesses may have a harder time with high competition keywords.

2. Time

SEO is considered a long game, while PPC offers nearly instant results in comparison:

• SEO takes roughly 3-6 months to show results, because the search engine needs to index your content and rank it appropriately, which can take
• six months or more.
• PPC takes roughly 2-3 months to see results. You create an ad, the ad network (usually Google Ads) approves it, and it starts running immediately.

3. Longevity

In terms of longevity, the same dichotomy holds:

• SEO can last nearly indefinitely. Some of the best content on the internet is many years old. While organic content can “age out” and fall out of favor, it can also be refurbished and kept relevant. With the proper maintenance, SEO basically lasts forever.
• PPC, meanwhile, lasts precisely as long as you have the money to pay for it and keep your ad campaigns active. If your budget runs out, the PPC campaigns stop until you put more money into the system. And, of course, if you decide you don’t like the ad’s performance, you can pause them at any time.

This phenomenon is primarily why both SEO and PPC advertising complement each other well. SEO starts slow and takes a long time to build up, while PPC begins almost immediately.

Further, you’re less likely to have PPC success without strong SEO. If your ad directs a prospect to a poorly written landing page, you’ll probably miss out on a conversion.

High-quality web pages mean higher conversion rates.

4. Keywords

Keywords are at the core of both SEO and PPC. However, the types of keywords that work best and the metrics that you’re looking at will vary.

When performing keyword research, you’ll find specific keywords have different intents behind them. These intents are:

• Navigational: the user knows where they want to go and wants a link
• Informational: the user has a question and wants an answer
• Tutorial: the user has a problem to solve and wants to know how to solve it themselves
• Commercial: the user has a problem to solve and wants to research solutions they can buy
• Transactional: the user wants to make a purchase and is looking for where to do it

Informational and tutorial keywords tend to perform best for SEO and are less effective for PPC.

If your goal is to get your target audience to download a checklist, for example, PPC ads can probably get some downloads and provide value.

However, you may want to let SEO handle these early-stage inquiries and focus on more purchase-ready keywords for your PPC campaigns.

Commercial and transactional keywords tend to perform best with PPC, though properly formulated high-quality content can also work well for SEO.

PPC tends to be most relevant when it has a tangible offer for the user and a concrete, easy-to-calculate return on investment.

A massive part of effective SEM is understanding the intent behind a search term and sculpting the marketing campaign you use to reach that intent most effectively.

When should you use SEO?

When it comes to choosing between SEO and PPC, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Both strategies have their place in a successful digital marketing strategy. However, for some campaigns and businesses, SEO is the better option.

If your goal is to get on the first page of the SERPs and stay there, investing in a good SEO campaign will be essential. Although Google Ads can get you onto the first page quickly, being on the organic side of SERPs is more reliable and longer lasting.

With a smart SEO campaign and consistent efforts over time, you can achieve a higher click-through rate (CTR) than with paid ads because searchers trust organic results more than they do ads.

Another instance where SEO may be preferable over PPC is when you’re targeting keywords with high competition.

If your budget isn’t high enough to compete with other advertisers for those keywords, then you’ll need to focus on organic search engine optimization instead of PPC.

This involves creating content that targets those keywords and optimizing it for search engines to appear near the top of SERPs when people search for those terms.

If your goal is to secure long-term visibility in the SERPs while also building trust with potential customers, then investing in an effective SEO campaign should be part of your digital marketing strategy.

A real-world example of SEO results

MileIQ, a mileage logging mobile app, needed to enhance its SEO and bring in more high-quality organic traffic to its app. To achieve this, it needed to get more rankings in Google, especially on the first page, by leveraging higher volume search terms.

So it partnered with HawkSEM and our teams zoned in on featured snippets, answering common search questions, and building in-depth content to enhance their authority.

The results:

• Growth in year-over-year organic site traffic by 125%
• Nearly 4,000 new first-page keyword rankings
• Increased organic sessions by 207%

When should you use PPC?

While SEO is focused on improving organic rankings in search engines, search marketing is a paid strategy that uses advertisements like Google Ads or Bing Ads.

Depending on your goals and budget, one of these strategies might better suit your needs.

For instance, if you want a short-term solution with guaranteed visibility, a paid search campaign can deliver fast results.

And because you’re only paying for ads when people click on them, it can be more cost-effective than SEO if budgeted correctly.

Additionally, PPC offers greater flexibility than SEO by allowing you to adjust and test different components of your ad copy when certain keywords aren’t driving enough clicks or conversions.

“SEM requires constant maintenance and refinement, so it’s imperative to consistently test, monitor and execute changes based on keyword-level performance,” says Smith.

In a nutshell, PPC is a great choice if you need quick visibility into SERPs and a way to measure the success of your campaigns in real-time.

But even though it might be tempting to rely solely on paid advertising campaigns instead of SEO strategies, using the two together offers the maximum ROI.

A real-world example of PPC results

Columbia Virtual Academy, a public education program in Washington State, understood the importance of digital marketing, but lacked the in-house expertise to effectively build and execute a strategy.

So it came to HawkSEM to restructure its PPC account with new campaigns, ad groups, keywords, ad copy, and ad extensions.

The results were phenomenal:

• Increased Google Ads conversions by 134% year over year
• Decreased cost per acquisition (CPA) by 51%
• Increased search clickthrough rate (CTR) by 45%

Why a holistic approach (SEM) is best

Using both SEO and PPC maximizes visibility and ensures your message reaches the widest possible audience.

For example, an organic SEO campaign can help boost your website’s rankings while also building trust with potential customers over time.

On the other hand, a PPC campaign can help you get quick visibility into SERPs and also measure the success of different ad variations in real time.

All you need is the right strategy to make your SEM campaign succeed.

The takeaway

“SEM” covers the bulk of your online advertising, while “SEO” is just one of the tools at your disposal, alongside PPC.

Your digital marketing strategy will depend on your goals, targeted keywords, budget, the quality of your site, your competition, and more.

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned marketer, finding the right balance between SEO and PPC is essential in SEM.

That’s why powerful tools like ConversionIQ exist. We created this platform to help you easily monitor and optimize your campaigns — from paid search to SEO to social media, resulting in better performance and higher ROI.

The question is, where do you put your budget? Can you write more content for organic traffic and SEO results, pay for high-quality tools to improve your overall marketing, or give Google money directly to give you more exposure and website traffic?

The choice is yours.

This article has been updated and was originally published in September 2022.