It may sound like a typical industry set of acronyms - and it is really - but in the context of online marketing it all makes perfect sense. We in the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) industry basically use each one to compliment each other in a sort of global strategy for websites and businesses online. Consider each one in turn:-



Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) encompasses so many different things that its completely necessary to abbreviate it. As a website owner, you either come across it at the very beginning or you find out the hard way that your website cannot live without it! Consider the illustration below:





SEO also fits into the broader strategy of online marketing, or as mentioned above SEM. This includes Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) as the major marketing arena of online marketing. Those who start a brand new website should invest in PPC at the beginning stages to ensure that their SEM strategy is being executed.



After which the broader activity of SEO begins to move the strategy towards achieving high in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This leads to the ultimate goal of all online business to achieve the maximum Return on Investment (ROI).



In a nutshell, a successful website uses a formulae:



SEM (SEO + PPC) + SERPs = ROI



Quite simple...but then again best left for the experts in online marketing to make it all happen for you!