In the field of digital marketing, there are a number of terms that keep popping up such as “SEO” and “SEA”. Seasoned webmasters, marketing professionals, and forward-thinking entrepreneurs will have no problem distinguishing the two. But what do these words mean for the rest of the people or for new entrepreneurs?
SEO and SEA: WHAT IS SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of optimizing a website so that search engines such as Google can rank it in the organic search results. Your website is compared with other websites that have approximately the same content. This is done on the basis of various criteria decided by the search engine.
Does it seem too complicated!? Do not worry! SEO may be difficult to explain in words, but it is easier to demonstrate in practice. Below is a screenshot of the search engine’s results page, after someone did a Google search for ‘sunglasses with a logo’.
The organic results are highlighted in green. These results are “natural” and are the most relevant according to Google based on the query “sunglasses with a logo”. Probably, the user is looking for printed sunglasses to hand out as promotional material or business gifts. Take, for example, the result of “sunglassville.com” which is shown as the first organic result. According to Google, this is a great option to show people that type in that specific search query.
So why are these results showing up on the first page and not the 12,200,000 other Google results? The answer is simple. According to Google, these results are the most relevant and reliable, and therefore offer the most value to users.
Google’s ability to find the most relevant results for any query has made it the largest search engine in the world. Much of this success is due to the ability to not only find the best results but also filter out the bad ones. For instance, you can also add a location to the search, such as ‘sunglasses with logo in Amsterdam’. You are now specifically looking for sunglasses with a logo in Amsterdam so, these results will therefore be filtered out. Providing value to users is the end game for Google.
Besides relevance, the other half of the Google equation is reputation. In our example ‘sunglasses with a logo’, there is not just one supplier active – there are probably dozens, all of which can be considered relevant. To decide which results to rank first, Google checks how “popular” the website is. Popularity is determined, among other things, by how many people link back to the site, which is also known as backlinking. Having more backlinks suggests that people are essentially talking about your website and recommending it to others, making it more popular and valuable in Google’s eyes.
Before you start performing SEO, you first need to map out who your target audience is and what they are likely to search for on Google. Then, you should make your website as relevant as possible for this target group. In the meantime, you also work on improving your online reputation, for example by obtaining backlinks based on a strategy.
Due to the size of the internet, this is a tedious process that requires dedication and patience, often involving months of reputational work to show fruitful results. But it’s definitely worth it: the more relevant and reliable your website becomes, the higher you’ll rank in Google’s organic results. Do you want to know more about SEO? find more information about this here.
SEO and SEA: WHAT IS SEA?
SEA stands for Search Engine Advertising, also known as PPC or Pay-Per-Click. It is the process of advertising directly on Google and other similar search engines. Advertising results are displayed at the top of the organic results on the search engine’s results page.
Ad results are highlighted in red and are clearly labelled with an “ads” icon. The main difference between ad results and organic results is that you pay Google to show your ad. SEA is often referred to as PPC because it is based on the Pay-Per-Click model. You set up an account and an advertising budget with Adwords, Google’s advertising platform, and as soon as users click on your ad, Google collects a pre-agreed amount. The more you are willing to pay for a click, the higher your ad will appear on the search engine results page.
You can manually set how much you are willing to pay for a click in your AdWords account. Depending on your industry and competitors, it can get very expensive to keep your ads visible. But on the other hand, it has the great advantage that your website is displayed directly on the first page of Google and not, for example, on page 3.
This is not to say that there are no actual things to do regarding SEA and how much you have to pay. Indeed, SEO principles still apply to SEA, mainly with regard to relevance. With AdWords, you have control over which search terms you want to target, which ad text you want to appear on Google, and which landing page your website users should end up on. The more relevant your ad text and your website’s landing page are to the query you’re targeting, the less you have to pay when the user clicks on your ad. That means you can afford more clicks to your site than your less relevant competitor.
Managing AdWords is a time-consuming task because you can target an almost unlimited amount of keywords. To maintain relevance for each keyword, each ad text and landing page must be tailored and relevant to keep your costs down. There is also a need to monitor your bids per click to ensure that your budget is used as efficiently as possible. Then there needs to be ongoing analysis to see which ads are performing well and which are not in order to evaluate and adjust a campaign accordingly.
In Conclusion – SEO VS SEA
If done properly, search engine advertising can drive traffic to your website very quickly and effectively but it comes with a cost. SEA differs significantly from SEO, where it can sometimes take months for Google to recognize your optimization efforts and rank your site in the organic results, but unlike SEA, you don’t pay anything directly to Google.
The long-term ROI (return on investment) for properly implemented SEO is much greater than SEA, as users are generally much more confident in organic results than advertising results, with the added benefit of not having to pay for every click. However, the short-term profit potential of SEA is excellent if you need an immediate and targeted boost in traffic to your website.
