SEO and SEM: what’s the diff?

Team Lucid loves you. We want to give you more content you like. Remember when we told you how to get your SEO and SEM groove on? Tons of shares on that post! We aim to please so we’re bringing you more. There are big changes in 2018 for your business in SEO and SEM. Today we’ll break those changes down for you.

SEO

What it is:

In a nutshell, SEO weaves carefully chosen keywords into your digital content that link back to the keywords your audience uses to find services like yours. All of your digital content needs to be optimized. From each website page to every blog entry. To maximize the potential of SEO you have to go all in.

Don’t go changing

• Links: using internal and external links strategically placed in your content.
• Meta descriptions: well-written meta descriptions are still the bombdiggity to get your audience enticed. Remember to go long at over 300 characters.

What’s new and what to do

• Voice recognition: with us all being on the go voice recognition search is quickly outpacing typed searches. Hey “Siri, who’s got the best pizza in town?” “Yo, Alexa! Who can I call for auto repair?” You get it! This means SEO now needs to be written in tones that match voice activation. Be sure to implement this tactic into your SEO to grab that audience.
• Mobile-first indexing: this one’s a big deal. According to Google, 2018 is the year they’ll make good on their promise for mobile-first indexing. This means getting your site mobile-friendly right away. Everything is going mobile and you don’t want to be left behind. Make your site mobile and nimble. Give your readers multimedia from GIFs to videos and all media in between.

SEM

Say what?

SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. This method of digital marketing employs paid search results to pull in website traffic. Google AdWords and other PPC (Pay Per Click) methods are behind SEM.

It is what it is.

• Still a big deal: SEM’s high level of importance to building your brand hasn’t budged. Depending on your budget, implement SEM in some form to drive more traffic. Consider your own search behavior. How often do you see “ad” as the first result on a page? This can be you.

Two tweaks and how to rock ‘em.

• New look: Google has transformed it’s SEM interface. Overall a better platform, some reports and analytics were not included. If you’re one that’s transitioning over, you’ll find you have to rebuild some insights from scratch. Bummer! Good news is you were already familiar with the value of the tool so are many steps ahead.
• Target practice: there’s word that SEM tools will go from a more keyword-oriented approach to more personal approach. This plays in with the strength of inbound marketing to drive interest. As you dive into your SEM approaches begin now using more targeted terms that are based on your existing analytics. If these are toast from the Google SEM evolution, use your email marketing or website insights to design more personalized SEM.

We hope these SEO and SEM updates help you take your business to the next level! Something working well, tell us about it!