Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Are Not The Same Thing

Knowing the difference between the SEO and SEM is very important as it can save you a world of grief later on. Many of the tools of SEM are not ones that should be used with SEO. In many cases they can even be considered Black Hat SEO and get your website dropped in the Search Results.

Search Engine Marketing is about paid results where Search Engine Optimization is about organic results. Essentially this means that SEM is about paying for results and SEO is about working to get them naturally. Because of this SEM can use many tools and tricks that the Search Engines actually forbid from being used in SEO. The main problem with this is that most people don't understand that the two are different and use the same techniques interchangeably.

One of the most used techniques that this applies to is called "Backlinking". This is the process of setting up links on other websites to drive people back to your own website. The key element of which is that you create them (or pay someone else to do so) and thus are not naturally occurring. While this can be a good idea to get people to come visit your website, it can destroy any opportunity you have for getting organic Search Results.

The problem is that people often use this technique explicitly to try and get better Search Results. They don't understand that the two are at odds with each other. What makes it even worse is that once the Search Results drop it can be very difficult, if not impossible, to get them to rise again. You would have to have every one of those Backlinks removed before the Search Results could again start to rise. Since all of those links exist on other websites which you have no control over, that can be a daunting task.

So as you can see, Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization are not the same thing. Only by knowing the difference can you help to protect yourself from inappropriate SEO techniques. If you want paid results then SEM may the way to go, however, if you want organic results, SEM can seriously harm your efforts.