SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is a very broad and complex term in internet business, especially when it is defined as a social media optimization tool and an online advertising concept. However, it is not always very easy to mark the features that differentiate the many faces of SEM both as a social media optimization tool and as an outright online advertising tool. In this article we are going to take a close and definitive look at SEM and be able to identify those features and characteristics that differentiate one face of it from the other.
In the first instance, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is generally defined as social media optimization tool for web page promotions. In this very definition, SEM is a very broad term that includes lots of other e-business advertising and marketing concepts, including tools for web page ranking among search engines. When SEM is defined in this sense, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) application is also seen as an aspect of SEM. SEO is defined as the natural process of improving or increasing the volume or quality of traffic to a web page from search engines through unpaid(algorithmic) or natural (organic) search results. SEO applies natural and unpaid features to help web pages rank high among top search engines amidst other millions of pages. Hence, when search engine optimization is defined as part of or a particular kind of SEM, then, at this point SEM is not a paid application.
In the second instance, search engine marketing (SEM) is defined as a form of internet marketing or online advertising that applies some paid features like contextual advertising, paid inclusion and paid placement, to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages. It uses the special features in the pattern of traditional advertising to bring the product information of its applicators to their unlimited specific target audience. It also applies some special features to create interactive businesses environment between online shops and their clients. In this sense, SEM has gone beyond being just a social media optimization tool after the pattern of SEO. Here, SEM is a paid package.
Hence, from the above accounts we can identify two major types of SEM (Search Engine Marketing); the first is identified as natural or organic SEM which uses unpaid features to aid web pages in ranking high among top search engines; the second is defined as Sponsored SEM which applies special paid feature to achieve specific visibility for web pages among search engines. This means that we have two identifiable kinds of Search engine marketing (SEM) applications; the organic and the sponsored. Search Engine Marketing, in the form of search engine optimization, is seen as a more ethical version than in the form of the second version.
However, there have arguments and serious debates to determine between Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which one should be seen as a branch of the other. While some argue that search engine marketing is an abused form of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), others argue that Search Engine Optimization is a compromised and mild version of Search Engine Marketing (SEM).