SEO vs. SEM vs. PPC – how do I know the right balance for my business? This question is more complicated than it appears, but the Bold x Collective team is here to help you thoroughly understand the three categories, their abilities, and how to optimize them.

Let’s start by discussing the differences between SEO vs. SEM vs. PPC.

All three of these options have advantages along with disadvantages. Let’s look more into these.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

• You don’t have to pay for ads
• Results take longer
• This is organic = most trust
• Relies on algorithms and link building
• Challenging to measure its process

SEM – Search Engine Marketing

• It can get pricy; pay more for ads = more traffic
• Results are instant
• Sometimes, these can decrease your credibility, as sometimes people tend to click organic search results
• These ads will not be affected by algorithms
• You can track all your results

PPC – Pay per Click

• You pay for results, as businesses will bid on the position
• Traffic is inconsistent
• Same as SEM, these can decrease your credibility, as some people tend to click organic search results
• With Google’s network, you can showcase your ad on multiple different sites
• You can track all your results using tools like Google Analytics

Should I Use them Together or Separately?

Firstly, we always recommend using SEO no matter what, because it will help you rank organically on search engines, and this is very beneficial in the long run.

We never recommend using SEM without SEO. Why? Because with SEM, when brands are paying for keywords, their prospects will click on their ad, and go to their website. Now, if the website doesn’t have relevant information that they are looking for, that user is going to head right back to their Google search to find another website. This is an issue, because search engines will be monitoring this and will give the website a quality score, which can end up ranking your website lower, therefore requiring you to pay more for keywords.

Now, moving onto PPC and SEM – you can use both, however, you will need to have a high budget to use them both. What differentiates PPC from SEM is that it can be used on social networks or platforms, which is something that SEM does not have the capability of doing.