Search Engine marketing (SEM) is an 'instant gratification' advertising media. You can basically set up a Google Adwords campaign in half an hour - and often have your advertisements running within the hour. Try that with newspapers, TV or radio! You don't have to make any changes to your website structure or architecture. You don't have to know how your website is built. And best of all - you only pay when your advertisement is clicked on - not when it is shown.

                  

So whats the downside of SEM? Well - you pay whenever your advertisement is clicked on. You 'Pay Per Click' (PPC) - and will keep paying per click for all your traffic. You'll even pay for clicks by your competitors. The issue of 'click fraud' is a growing problem - and although every major PPC system claims to have ways of detecting click fraud - its out there.

Search Engine Optimization is a longer term approach, and encompasses many 'best practice' web design standards. There are often no payments required to the search engines, as the major search engine spiders (robots) visit your site for free (i.e. Google, and Yahoo), add it to their index, and rank it for relevancy against mathematical parameters. Good content, targeting well searched phrases, built to the 4 pillars of accessible web design (and built to conform to the published rules) - often win in the search engine rankings.

Regards,

Matt at Rioforma Consulting