When talking about marketing, you often hear the terms SEO and SEA. But, what do these terms mean? And how can you use these online marketing styles for your company? In this post we tell you all about it. If after reading it you still have questions, or can use help with online marketing, do not hesitate to contact us. We can assist you with the online visibility of your business.
SEO and SEA: The Meaning
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. It is a collective term for all activities that you carry out to ensure that your website scores higher in the organic results of search engines such as Google. Search Engine Advertising (SEA) on the other hand, revolves around advertising. When using SEA, search engines will show ads for your organization in the search results above the organic results. Both forms of online marketing are of course aimed at attracting more traffic to the website. It seems from the above descriptions that SEO is free and you have to pay for SEA. However, the difference is not that simple. The SEO activities that you undertake can be, for example, collaborations for which you pay. A budget is often also required for SEO.
What is The Difference between SEO and SEA?
What are the main differences between the use of SEO and SEA? We will show you.
Profits in the Long Term Versus Direct Results
SEO is a slow process where you cannot expect results from one day to the next. It takes a lot of time to position your website on different keywords and to get a higher position in the results of the search engines. It also depends on the activities of competitors, who possibly work on a better organic position at the same time. However, if you do it well, you benefit from it in the long term. SEO can ensure that your website gets a good position in the search results for a long time. SEA, on the other hand, is direct. Once your ads have been approved, they will be shown with the relevant search terms. You can therefore expect more clicks to your website almost immediately. At the same time it is short-lived. Once you stop the ads, you will no longer notice any effect.
Measuring the Results
The results of SEO activities are difficult to measure. How do you determine how many hours of work are profitable compared to the improving results in the search engines? We would advise to use an SEO tool that monitors the position of the keywords you are working on. This way you can see whether the work performed has an effect and improves your SEO position. When you use paid advertising (SEA), you immediately see how much you have spent on a campaign and how many clicks (and possibly even conversions) it has produced. However, because the ads in the search results are marked as such in for example Google, there are also people who do not click on the ads and scroll directly to the organic results. Ads can be seen as very commercial. Also there is always a limited number of advertisements shown, while there may be more advertisers who want their ads to be shown with competing search terms.
It depends on the organization and the desired results to choose SEO or SEA. SEA works well if you want to quickly increase traffic to your website. SEO is very suitable if you want to work on the visibility of your website in the long term. It works optimally if you can use a combination of both activities. Do you want to know more? Do not hesitate to contact our international SEO and SEA experts!