The magic formula SEM = SEO+SEA+SMO?

The terms SEM /SEO /SEA / SMO come up all the time in the jargon of the digital marketer, in this article we will explain the difference and the magic formula.

When working on the SEO of websites, several levers can be used. Below you will find a brief summary of the acronyms and vocabulary of SEO experts as the case of our digital marketing agency. Understanding what these acronyms mean and can group together will facilitate your exchanges with others and also with our experts.

SEM, SEO, SEA, SMO, will have no more secrets for you.

SEM

From its meaning  » Search Engine Marketing  » .
Regroups all the activities aimed at reinforcing the visibility of a website from the web. No longer limited strictly to search engines, but it also opens up to social networks and paid search, in other words all the tools necessary for a site to be well referenced and that the SEO strategy will be successful, in order to give more visibility to a website.

SEO

Of its abbreviation expresses what we call « Search Engine Optimization ».
Search Engine Optimization.
Includes activities aimed at strengthening the visibility of a site on search engines, this in the natural results (also called organic).
These activities are divided into :

SEO Onpage (on the site): tree structure, content, coding

SEO Offpage (outside the site) : netlinking, linkbaiting, purchase of links…

Our agency KALLITOUS corporation is clearly positioned on these levers as an SEO agency.

The search engine robots will analyze each website to give them a score and a degree of relevance to the queries – searches of Internet users. The best sites, in the eyes of Google and others, will be positioned in the best positions and will see their traffic increase thanks to this preferential position. The whole issue of SEO is therefore to meet the expectations of search engines permanently.

If hundreds of criteria come into play, we can classify them in 3 main categories, the 3 pillars of SEO:

  • The content of the site: The texts, images or videos provide information to Internet users and search engines on the nature and theme of the site.

  • Technical: Hosting, loading speed, mobile compatibility and indexing optimization (internal linking, tree structure) are part of the major technical SEO optimizations.

  • Popularity: Getting inbound links (links that point to your site) is a good sign for credibility and popularity, it promotes a better Google ranking.

SEA

Search Engine Advertising.
Search engine advertising.
Includes activities aimed at buying advertising space on search engines.
In France, the best known program is Adwords, which allows ads to be displayed in the results of the Google search engine, and on affiliated sites.

As for SEO, SEA is based on the relevance of an ad for a given query, but not only… Indeed, paid search also works through a complex bidding system. To summarize, the advertiser will list the keywords on which he wants to appear, write the ads and set the budget for a SEA campaign. The search engine advertising agencies (Google Ads, Bing Ads…) will display the ads – provided they are of sufficient quality and with a sufficient budget. Thus, it is important to constantly monitor and optimize your campaigns to improve your return on investment.

SMO

Social Media Optimization.
Optimization on social networks.
Includes activities aiming at developing the visibility of an entity through social media.
The most famous media concerned in France are : Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Linkedin, Youtube, viadeo…

The SMO refers to all actions that aim to improve the visibility and awareness of a site through networks or social media. These platforms are essential vectors of visibility and notoriety, because they generate many visits daily.

While SMO was considered as a simple component of SEO, it has gained a lot of weight in a few years. Social media have become so diversified that there are now many ways in which they can help a site’s SEO or visibility. Indeed, if we can immediately say that social networks can be used as a traffic generator, we should not forget that they are also used to increase brand awareness and therefore, by extension, its referencing. We can also cite the case of optimizing a Google My Business page for local referencing and optimizing a YouTube channel for video referencing. Finally, social media also offer the possibility to run advertising campaigns to increase traffic, visibility and/or awareness of a company.