SEM vs SEO who wins?

I would like to get a comparison on this 2 (SEO & SEM) major tactics in marketing. I know it would be hard to compare because they're different from each other. But they have one common goal and thats getting the right traffic.

Now I want to know your opinion, If you have to choose one approach which would you be using? SEM or SEO, choose only one. and tell us what would be the Pros and Cons of this approach.

My initial understanding of SEO and SEM:

SEO - takes a lot of work (linkbuilding,submissions,etc), cheaper, slower results
SEM - less work, expensive, fast result

so for me SEM is my winner if I have a fund to spend.

I would like to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

 

No SEM campaign is complete without SEO. Moreover, since the purpose of SEO is to make the site better for both search engines and users, you may find that it will suffice on its own. In any case, the advantages of SEO over the other aspects of SEM make it clear that, even if you are going to spend additional money on advertising and paid placement, SEO must be your first step in promoting your site.

 

SEO not must be slowly and takes a lot of work if you have good professional of SEO.
SEO give you good result for longer time.
When your webiste will be top ranked you will be have few times higher traffic like from SEM and also few times cheaper.

SEM give you immediality traffic, but also this traffic can finish immediality if your fund will finish.

No traffic = No new customers
No new customers = No money
No money = END OF BUSINESS.

SEO in this situation still working, you not lose next customers and still have chance to improve your service.
Another aspect, SEM its much more expensive like SEO.

In my opinion SEO few times better from SEM.

 

It depends on what your intention is for your website/business and if you have a lot of money or not.

If your intention is to make quick and easy money, then i would say that sem is more important than seo. But if your intention is to launch and grow a long term internet business then both has the same value.

If your intention is to grow a long term internet business, you can structure it in a way that you do not have to pay a cent toward your sem when you decide to begin with sem.

What i mean by this is: If you can start your internet business, that sells electronical products, for 100$(this is possible, i am busy doing this at the moment) and you make a lot of sales(earning $150 to be very conservative) you can use that extra $50 and all the money that you earn from that moment on to maybe pay for your PPC.

Actually you are doing SEM for free.

Greetings

 

SEO is a little too slow for me but a necessary evil

 

You would like to say that if keyword cost for example $10 and 100 visitors make you 100 clicks and not will buy nothing, then you will waste $1000 without any grow.
Top ranked website for same price used SEO, give you not 100 visitors but minimum 300 at same keywords, where does't matter how many of them will buy something, 1,2 or 300.
Also there working "long tail" which give you another for example 100 visitors, still for same price.

In summary:
You would like to say that: 400 visitors from SEO which cost $1000 is equal 100 visitors from SEM which cost same and that its good for long term internet business ?
I think you are in wrong.

 

SEO is just part of SEM...so you cant say you're doing SEM if you dont do SEO???
first thing you need to do, is learn what is SEM in the deeper approach..

 

I don't think SEM is better than SEO. We all know that SEM is expensive, although it can bring more traffic. Of course, if you want more traffic immediately and have no problem with spending more money, SEM is an ideal choice.

 

@rypher21 yeah you're kinda right there. But what I'm looking is the overall result.

In SEO you get free traffic for all of your effort. not exactly free because you use some of your resources too (time and some money). So this i think can be called as minified SEM, coz it involves some buying/spending.

while in SEM you buy traffic for every u/v that comes to your site. Now doing SEM also involves minor SEO stuff (eg keyword research)

Each of them involves minor practice of each other. So what I would like to know is which road is best for most people here that you would like us to follow and what are the pit falls of that road.

Thanks!

 

but i prefer SEO coz due to it, site will come on top and you can get. yes speed is slow but work will be quility.

 

@Thomas Maxwell, Yeah same concept here. If your buying traffic and at the same time you're also earning. It's just matter of playing around with the cost and price. If you spend $100 for every $150 conversion on your site, then thats already good but that can always be improve, you can look for other SE that also sells traffic in a lesser price, Another is increasing your product price.

In that process you get $50 for less hassle work. and you can duplicate that system on other sites

 

Each has its own advantages. Well, it really depends on your goals. I think SEO has long-term benefits. SEM hasn't. It tends to be temporary.

 

@fgogo Interesting... can you site some comparison how would SEO win vs SEM, I'm interested of the process.

lets assume this example:

keyword = How to loss weight
age = 2 years
page rank = 0 (lets assume its new)

Now in the process of SEM lets assume I spend $2,500 for every 5,000 unique visitor per month. Thats $0.5 for every visitor (very worst scenario i can think of) But for every visitor you can also earn $20.

Now the conversion, let assume at least we get 10% of unique visitor to buy our product. That 10% is equal to 500 customer.

500 x $20 = 10,000

Now in SEM its already a win price. you turn your 2500 to 10,000.

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Now how would you beat that process in SEO? How would you get 5000 unique targeted visitor? and atleast get 10% of that traffic to convert.

I'm very interested to know your process.

Thanks!

 

Hi,

In my own experiences, SEO would be the most important part of SEM. Thus, I don't think this would be a problem who would win.
Also, we do need to combine SEM with SMO (social media optimization) for the best result of online promotion.

all the best,

 

@AirForce1 great point SMO should also be considered.

 

Not really looking for a winner, but would like to hear the process and pit falls to that approach.

 

Off Course SEO will win !!

 

No No

Both SEO and SEM work togther for desired results just like right and left hand

 

@Leo_Warren092 yeah I know. but if you have to choose one, which would you choose. and why?

 

Basically both have same Powers

In SEM u drive traffic whatever way u like

but in SEO u built home first and build traffic

So SEM has little edge over SEO