SEM v/s SEO

[WilliamJonson]

Both are creators of web marketing strategies, SEM is "Search Engine Marketing" which is very waste it include SEO also, SEO is Search Engine Optimization which helps to optimize any websites as much as possible to get good ranking.

[JamesFranklin45]

SEO is much better than SEM, because SEM focuses only on increasing the visibility of a website, while an SEO works to increase all the factors.

[KellyThompson]

I think you cannot compare these two, because they both are having their own effect for your website, SEM is helpful to increase visibility of your site on search engines while SEO is helpful in increasing Page Rank for your website.

[BeauBaines]

I will choose SEO among these two, because SEM will provide you the visibility on the search engine only, but SEO will provide you everything including visibility.

[StevenMartin]

I think SEO will win this contest as it provides a lot of benefit as compared to SEM, also it provides you the benefits provided by the SEM also.

[sofyjohnson18]

SEM refers as search engine marketing.
SEO refers as search engine optimization.
The main difference between these is that search engine optimization is simply component of search engine marketing.

[mex]

It's important to clarify these terms.They're sometimes used interchangeably.

SEO makes your site accessible to the search engines through the use of strategies that improves your chances of being found online.
Because internet users always click through few sites that appear on the first page of the SERPs, SEO ultimate goal is to obtain higher ranking on the SERPS.

But SEM is a much broader term. SEO uses strategies to gain visibilty,but SEM uses the search engines to advertise sites or businesses to a bunch of targeted internet users who are interested in whatever that is being offered.It drives targeted traffic to a website through paid advertising or sponsored
links.So the ads or links you see by the side of websites are actually classic examples of SEM.
SEO and SEM are not into competition but work together to get your business from obscurity to visibility.
They're both required for your online success.So embrace them!

[Hemanthmalli]

[quote="WilliamJonson"][/quote]
Hi,
In my view SEO is considered a subset of SEM services. If you want to conduct business on the Internet you need to be visible in both organic and advertised links, which means you need both SEO and SEM.