SEO vs SEM

Three letter initialisms are a bit of a pain point in the technology world, but in search, you shouldn’t confuse two, even if they look the same: SEO and SEM.

There are jobs that are similar and jobs that are the same. Programmers come in varied degrees, but a Full-Stack Developer is different from a Front-End Developer, much like how a Graphic Designer and a UX Designer can be the same, but aren’t.

It’s a similar issue in the search engine world, especially where two initialisms are concerned: SEO and SEM.

Both start the same way: “SE” stands for “Search Engine”, so that’s pretty easy. It’s the last letter that defines each a little differently.

In “SEO”, the “O” stands for “Optimisation”, while “SEM” sees the “M” as “Marketing”, and the two aren’t the same. Much like how Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone would both be completely different things — and yet were the same title, separated only by the US needing the title as Sorcerer’s Stone outside of the rest of the world — and SEO is typically not an SEM, nor is an SEM an SEO. They do different jobs and get different outcomes, and knowing that can make a world of difference depending on what and who you’ve hired.

Some SEOs may have some SEM experience, and some SEMs have some SEO experience, but typically they’re not going to follow the same approaches, so what’d the difference?

What is an SEO?

If the three-letter acronym (TLA, and it’s actually an initialism) hasn’t given it away, an SEO is someone who works with websites to optimise the information and results to better work with search engines.

It is typically seen as a content thing, and involves writing and rewriting content to better match how people search, but there’s more to optimising websites for search engines than writing a sentence to target the way people search. SEO is also about the titles being used, the words, the phrasing, the descriptions, and much of the technical process that makes sites work.

While many might expect an SEO to work primarily in content, a good Search Engine Optimiser should understand more than just the content; they should be proficient in exploring the website in its entirety, and working out a strategy to increase ranking of articles and pages to improve the site’s standing online.

What is an SEM?

A little bit different, an SEM is someone who works with the optimisation of words and content to ads, typically in getting content listed on Google AdWords and other marketing-based systems.

People working in Search Engine Marketing are often looking up search volume, calculating budgets in relation to cost per click (CPC), and working out how much they can spend on getting websites listed in search results for specific words.

There’s more to an SEM’s role than merely paying for words, but whereas an SEO is working on making the content work better with Google and the end-user executing the search, and SEM is generally targeting the top of that search where the AdWords go.

Can the two jobs connect?

It’s entirely possible for an SEO to do the job of an SEM, and for an SEM to do the job of an SEO. Many SEOs are half-decent SEMs, and some people who work as SEMs probably aren’t bad SEOs, either.

However finding two that totally understand each other’s craft isn’t all that common. Much like how both a dentist and a psychology are technically doctors, and both know something about medicine, the two areas aren’t exactly identical, and so while they may know some things, they’ll also likely be missing some understanding about other areas.

If you’re hiring an SEO, make sure they’re proficient in Search Engine Optimisation, perhaps with a bonus of some other skills along the side.