Equine Marketing: What is the difference between SEO and SEM?

Online marketing can feel like bit of a jungle to navigate in. There are quite a few buzzwords and abbreviations to the various digital disciplines, and as an equestrian profession or business owner, we acknowledge that it can be difficult to figure out what to focus on, and in which order.

Two concepts that are thrown around a lot when talking about online marketing are SEM and SEO. But what do these concepts really mean, and what is the difference between them? You’ll get the answer here.

SEM – Search Engine Marketing

SEM is an abbreviation for Search Engine Marketing or Search Engine Marketing. This term is used to describe all paid marketing on search engines such as Google.

Every time you search for something on Google, you will usually see some ads at the top of the search results. These are paid ads, and fall under the term SEM. In addition, Google has many partner sites where their paid ads can also be displayed.

When you equestrian business chooses to advertise on Google and / or the partner sites, you use a program called Google Ads - here you create the ads  yourself. You also choose a monthly advertising budget, and each time someone clicks on one of your ads, you pay a small price to Google.

If you make your ads as targeted as possible, your ads will only appear to people who are potential customers. Thus, it can be said that your advertising budget is spent far more efficiently than if you spent money on ads in a newspaper where you have no control over who reads it.

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation

SEO is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization or Search Engine Optimization. In short, this means that you optimize your equine website so that it ranks as high as possible, among the search results on search engines.

Optimizing a website is a lot of technical work and it requires both a lot of time and knowledge. Additionally, it can take a long time before the work bears fruit and the website starts to rank among the top search results.

In relation to SEM, you do not pay for SEO because it is not ads. However, due to the great work that goes into SEO and the vast amount of knowledge required, there are many who pay for professional assistance.

What should your equine business focus on?

As a starting point, it is recommended for your equestrian business to focus on both SEM and SEO. However, as a smaller equine business owner, the resources for marketing are usually quite limited and therefore one may have to choose one over the other.

If you do not mind waiting to see results, SEO can be a good investment. If the work is done properly, your website will rank high among search engine results without you paying for it. Keep in mind, though, that you will probably have to pay an expert to do the work for you. In addition, SEO must also be maintained, so you will have to keep paying - even after your website has received a high ranking.

If, on the other hand, you want to see results right away, you should focus on SEM. When you create an ad in e.g. Google Ads, your ad will be known among the top search results from day 1. In addition, the ads will be displayed before the organic results, ie. the unpaid results. This allows a potential customer to see your paid ad before they see a competitor's website where a lot has been invested in SEO.

Do you need help with developing a professional keyword analysis that will leverage your equestrian marketing?

Please have a look at our Equine SEO packages or contact me for a 30 min complimentary consultancy call.

I look forward to helping your equine business more visibility online.