How SEO and SEM work together to benefit your business!

For an effective digital strategy, we need to draw on two major tools: organic and paid growth.

In practice, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is responsible for “organic” ranking, meaning you need to use a mix of creativity and engaging content for your website to rank highly on a search engine like Google. With this method, there is no way of paying your way to a higher position.

In contrast, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) deals with the paid aspect of your digital marketing plan. This encompasses paid search ad campaigns, such as Google Ads. SEM strategies include creating and optimizing digital ads in addition to setting a budget to pay for your ads.

When we compare SEO vs. SEM, the glaring differences are the financial and time investments, the type of content you will require, and the time frame you can expect results in. While SEM is more successful at short- to medium-term results, SEO outruns it for medium- and long-term results.

There’s a decision to be made. Either investing time and effort into creating a webpage that would organically rise to the top of the search engine ranking – or continuously pay for each click that your ads get. But do we have to forego one for the other? At Voke Design, a leader in digital marketing in the Middle East, we would always recommend a balance between the two tactics in the order of: SEM first, followed by SEO.

Once we determine your most relevant set of keywords – ideally those that many users are looking for but few web pages feature –, we can move on to your content strategy. It boils down to incorporating keywords skillfully within your website as part of high-quality content that, in conjunction with paid ads, will move to the top of the search bars and engage an expanding audience over time.