SEO or SEM: Which Digital Marketing Strategy brings more Leads?

Georgia Tsernaki is the author of the article with title "SEO and SEM: Which digital marketing strategy brings more leads?"

Author: Georgia Tsernaki

Date of publication: 11/04/2022

Many companies rush to gain online presence in order to be sustainable due to the rapid changes the pandemic has brought. Actually, this urgent adaptation is vital for them in order to remain active and not to lose their customers. However, this new world, the digital one, is totally unknown to many business owners. Therefore, they don't know whether it's better to invest in SEO or SEM.

The Role of a complete Digital Marketing Strategy

More specifically, this has to do with the digital marketing strategy they should follow. Most of the times though, they don’t know how to proceed, focusing mainly on paid campaigns. In fact, a solid digital marketing strategy is very important in order for them to reach a wider audience and increase their sales. That's why a professional marketer is necessary. Let's take a closer look at the basic information people should know before they invest their money only in Search Engine Marketing campaigns.

SEO or SEM

SEO and SEM go together

SEM is a digital marketing strategy that increases the traffic of a site through paid ads.

Indeed, paid campaigns bring faster results and more leads but this strategy should go along with the content optimization of a site. This is because optimizing content builds a solid environment in a site and this brings more frequent organic user visits.

What's the difference between SEO and SEM?

If users like the content of a site, they will visit it again and again without clicking an ad. Consequently, in the long run, the company will save money because of this organic traffic. Based on this, it is clear that paid ads might help us drive more visits to our site. However, if our content isn't of high quality, interesting and relevant to what users need, the latter won't make conversions.. Besides that, of course they won't get back to the site again.

How do SEO and SEM interplay?

As a result, we should set SEM campaigns in order to attract new users but SEO is here to turn these visits into leads and loyal customers.

Practical Example of bad SEM and SEO

How users behave: Wrong content

For example, a user wants to buy a woman dress. They type in Google Search Engine the keyword “women dresses” and the first results are paid ads. Let’s imagine that the user clicks the first ad and they don’t find exactly what they want. This is a loss for the company as the ad is paid and it finally didn’t lead to a conversion. This might be because of a wrong keyword setting and irrelevant results to users’ query.

How users behave: Bad site navigation

The other scenario is to click the ad, find what they want but the navigation in the site is so difficult that they can’t complete their order. In this case, users just exit the site or complete the order and don’t visit the site again which means bad user experience. This is also a loss for the company as the goal isn't only to make an instant unique sale but also to retain this new client.

User Experience matters

Also, bear in mind that the excellent user experience you should provide them with is something that might stand you out of the competition. So, it's vital to have optimized content and meet users’ needs if you want to achieve high user experience. As a result, you create a loyalty scheme with online customers who will choose you by themselves next time.

Why do users trust more Google SEO results?

SEO is a digital marketing strategy that helps a site rank high in organic results because of well-optimized content.

Research has shown that the majority of users skip paid results and scroll down in order to find organic ones. Are you surprised? You should be! Users trust organic results more and for a good reason. Google SEO algorithms scan and rank the pages, based on the users’ keyword, bringing the most relevant results first.

Organic results and User Experience

Users trust Google and also stay loyal to sites which provide them directly with what they are looking for. Online customers use the internet in order to save time and find what they need quickly. So, relevant content to users’ queries is valuable and always leads to users’ good experience. This means that they are likely to buy and if not at the time of speaking, they will come back to complete their purchase later.

Next steps for a complete Digital Marketing Strategy

If you are a business owner or a marketer , you should bear in mind that PPC campaigns aren't enough for a successful digital marketing plan. The content optimization of the site is also essential in order to retain customers and build a consistent relationship with them.

SEM matters only along with SEO

Of course, SEM campaigns bring traffic to the site. However, this increases sales only if the keyword setting and the SEO of the site is high and relevant to what users search for.