Since this section is dedicated to SEO, I assume that participating members devote most of their time on SEO rather than SEM... Just curious, what are some of the main reasons that you'd choose SEO over SEM?
I guess what I mean by SEM is more things like adwords, banners, pop-ups and other types of online advertising.
Hey, Definitely online advertising costs a lot of money when compared to SEO (which is actually free). A lot of research needs to be done for online advertising like shortlisting sites your target audience visit, preparing budgets, making good banners and LP, contacting the sites you wish to advertise on, negotiating the cost.... and it goes on. SEO on the other hand, research on how to do SEO is already done. Online advertising gets you referral traffic (at a cost), while SEO gets you organic traffic (at no cost). Having said that I'm not against online advertising, it is for those who have deep pockets. The best and safest way of online advertising would be to find a right CPA network.
Agree with this SEO, PPC, and Viral Marketing are the components of SEM. So when you do SEO, you also do SEM! But only a part of SEM!
SEM? I'm assuming that stands for Search Engine Manipulation SEO is way better, longer lasting effects over the notorious blackhat methods EDIT: I was joking about the manipulation bit, SEM is not free so it's not feasible for me at the moment
SEO is more long-term, it takes a long time to implement and get resuts but once you have got good rankings you should be able to sustain these, while with SEM results are temporary and do not reflect the quality of your site/links. Building a good traffic driving site is more important and more efficient in the long term than paying money for your traffic.
Li, i had wrote a post on SEO vs PPC sometime back and IMO, seo is meant for long term and PPC is for short term. Also time and goals/expectations are a factor as well as ROI. Both have their advantages and downfall.