Search Engine Optimisation / Search Engine Marketing – Which one is for me?

Increasing Website traffic is a great way to boost business for most companies even if their core business is not online-based. Getting more people looking at your Website means more exposure for your business, higher company profile and more chance for word of mouth.  
There are a few ways to get traffic and two of the most popular are Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).  

Search engines are the best place to start steering customers because now this is the first place people go to find a product or service. Gone are the days where we turn to the yellowpages; now we head straight for Google.

So which is the solution for you? Let's look at the differences.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Organic search results are the unpaid results that appear in your search. These are the Webpages the search engine thinks are the most relevant to your search.  
Searchers tend to pay a lot of attention to the first three organic results, some attention to the rest of the first page, occasionally they will navigate as far as the third page and they will almost never look any further.  
SEO is the art/science of enhancing the visible and invisible parts of a Website to gain increased volume and quality of traffic to the site. The aim is to make the page highly relevant to certain Keywords and phrases and for Google to consider the site highly relevant for searchers of those terms and, therefore, display the site in the organic search results. 
If your site appears on the first page for a certain Keyphrase you are guaranteed to get a share of that Keyphrase's traffic. The higher in the results you appear, the better.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
The paid advertisements on the search results page of Google are at the top of the page and down the right hand side. In other search engines they can be in different positions including at the bottom of the page and scattered throughout the search results.
The benefit of paid appearances is that they appear on the front page for your chosen Keyphrases regardless of how poorly optimised your site is. You can spend as much as you like to ensure you appear on the front page for as many Keyphrases as you wish (some limitations apply).
The disadvantage is that users do have a tendency to skim over ads and concentrate more on the organic results.  

In Summary
SEO is a long-lasting effect, putting your site in a credible, highly visible position for people searching for your type of site. It will pay dividends long after you have forgotten what it cost.
SEM is just as targeted and more guaranteed but only lasts while you're spending the money. The cost over time will be far greater than SEO.  

My Advice
Use both. Target your keyphrases hard by also paying for listing even if the organic and paid results appear on the same page. Pay more for keyphrases for which you can't achieve front page ranking.

Search engines are where Internet traffic starts. Make the most of it.

Visit Melbourne Online for more.