Know the Difference Between SEO, PPC and SEM for More Efficient Digital Marketing

1. Know the Difference Between SEO, PPC and SEM for More Efficient Digital Marketing Reliable medical SEO services help healthcare entities stay abreast of the latest SEO trends, and ensure that their clients rank high on SERPs. The healthcare industry is constantly seeing new technological innovations and advancements to stay ahead of the competitors. In this digital age it is important for every medical practice and healthcare business to optimize their website to improve online presence and drive more patients and consumers. However, with so many options available in digital marketing for healthcare, it may be a daunting task to pick the right strategy that suits your business. A professional medical SEO service provider can assist in optimizing medical websites and help attract targeted audience. Today most healthcare organizations understand that it is important to have a strong online marketing strategy for a strong presence in the search engine and also to ensure that their business is in front of your target audience. But here the question is “which is the right strategy for your healthcare business”? SEO or Search Engine Optimization, SEM or Search Engine Marketing, and PPC or Pay-Per-Click are various digital marketing strategies and one thing that is common to all the three is that they all denote activities that are undertaken by brands and marketers to make their online presence more visible so that their websites and social media profiles attract more traffic. For any business it is important to know the difference between these strategies to gain maximum benefits from digital marketing. Search Engine Optimization(SEO) It is a set of techniques designed to increase your search engine ranking and organically increase the traffic to your site. It means that the businesses do not pay the search engine for diverting traffic to their sites. This is done with the help of various SEO factors like on-page content optimization, off-page optimization, using strong links and backlinks, relevant keywords, high quality content etc. SEO disciplines need to continually evolve to keep up with Google's ever-changing algorithms. Pay per Click (PPC) This is a paid method of promoting a website that helps you to be on the first page of multitude of targeted terms within a day. It runs on online ads, the marketers place their ads on the SERPs and pay a

2. fee when someone clicks on the ad. This is a specialized area of work because popular search engines run this program on a real-time bidding method. Since the advertising inventory is limited, this means that advertisers need to bid like in a private auction – only in this case, it is automated – in order to get a place on the result page. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) This is a set of activities that revolve around enhancing the online presence of a company using paid methods as well as organic method. The ultimate goal of SEM is to increase your website’s visibility on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. This shows that the idea of both PPC and SEO fall under SEM. However, the term SEM strictly fits into the paid search sphere. Difference Between the Three Terms •Difference Between SEM and PPC: Both of these terms are often used for each other and it is considered as the parent term of paid marketing techniques like PPC, SERM (Search Engine Reputation Management) etc. SEM typically stands for any kind of internet marketing activity that is undertaken by a marketer to improve the visibility of the site on the search engines result page using paid or unpaid campaign but primarily through paid advertising whereas PPC strictly uses paid advertising campaigns to be on top of the SERP. Some experts today say that SEM includes marketing activities that are related to social media also as it is one of the search engine visibility parameters. •Difference Between SEO and PPC: SEO refers to free and unpaid digital marketing strategy where marketers try to organically earn traffic whereas PPC is a process where a brand or marketer pays a fee to the search engine to get traffic. Another difference between PPC and SEO is that SEO is slow and PPC is fast. This is because SEO is a free process and all your competition in the marketplace will be engaged in making their sites optimized for search engines and therefore it involves a longer time to optimize the website and seek the attention of search engines. Another reason for slow performance is the quality of links and backlinks, or it is not in accordance with the search engine’s guidelines. Although this is a slow process, all the efforts pay off well once the page rank starts rising. PPC on the other hand, works faster. With effective PPC strategy the paid ads will be placed above organic search results and the ad and the link start to get clicks, within a few hours of implementation. The third difference is that, even

3. though SEO is slow, it is a durable and consistent method whereas PPC is a quick but temporary process that needs to be revised regularly. •Difference Between SEM and SEO: As mentioned earlier, SEO is a free but effective way of making the website search engine friendly and SEM is a broader term that involves free activities like SEO and paid activities like PPR and SERM. In a way, SEO services can be considered as a part of SEM, and SEM can be considered as a parent term. Importance of knowing the difference between SEO, SEM and PPC and which is the best Marketers invest money in paid marketing techniques to promote their website on search engines. Therefore, it is important to know the difference between these three concepts. All these techniques are powerful and can drive prospects to your website. However, analyzing each technique and finding out the right one is essential for the growth of your website and ROI. Another reason for understanding the difference is that each of these marketing techniques requires a budget. So, knowing which techniques can give you the best result within your budget helps to keep down costs and earn profit. All these tactics used for online marketing aims at improving web page ranking, traffic and better sales. But it is difficult to say which one is more important. If you own a small medical practice or business with little competition then sticking to SEO is the best option, whereas if you own a large business or medical practice with strong competition then SEO alone may not be enough. A proper combination of both PPC and SEO is required for any business. All of the above measures can help medical businesses enhance their value, improve online presence and increase revenue. A reliable provider of medical SEO services would stay abreast of the latest SEO trends, and ensure that their clients rank high in all leading search engines and improve traffic. 800) 941-5527 www.medresponsive.com