Here we go again, time for another round of acronyms. With so many different terms and short forms, learning how to distinguish between all these letters can be tough. That’s why I am here again to help guide you through everything you need to know about SEO, SEM, and SMO.

Let’s start at the beginning and uncover the true identities of these marketing short forms.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing or SEM is the process of gaining visibility within search engines. This can be accomplished in one of two ways. Firstly, you can gain visibility through paid search advertising, the most well-known of which is Google Ads. With Google Ads, your advertisements will appear within the Google search results and you pay for the resulting clicks on your ad. This process is known as pay-per-click or PPC advertising.

The second means of gaining visibility through search engines is by getting more free traffic through SEO.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a subset of SEM and involves all the natural or organic ways a business can rank higher within a search engine. Through SEO best practices, businesses’ websites can naturally rank higher than other sites with similar offerings.

Some of these best practices include:

  • URLs with properly incorporated keywords
  • Relevant and descriptive page titles
  • Building up inbound links from other websites to your own
  • Content that is mobile-friendly

Now, if you’re starting to wonder what our last acronym could possibly mean, let’s think of it as the perfect combination of SEO and social media.

Social Media Optimization (SMO)

Social Media Optimization or SMO, is a set of best practices used to promote your business through various social media channels. SMO is all about on-page optimization and includes how your business and content are curated, organized and managed through these platforms.

There are many benefits to leveraging SMO tactics including lead generation and an increase in sales. When you optimize your social media channels, you begin to build trust and familiarity for your users. They can see you have done the proper research, are sharing your own industry-related content, engaging with relevant users, participating in conversations and are being recommended by others.

Is your business leveraging any of these marketing tactics? Are you interested in learning more about any of them? Then you should definitely reach out and we can start optimizing your online presence together!