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SEM vs. SEO
I could have sworn I had written a post about SEO vs. SEM way back when, but apparently it was all in my imagination.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about both Organic Search (SEO) and Paid Search (SEM). I have a sneaky suspicion that I’ll be rolling up my sleeves and getting quite dirty with them in the upcoming months.
If I had to put all my eggs in one basket in terms of long term strategy, hands down I’d throw the majority of my money towards SEO.
However, I’ve also spent the last several weeks watching my coworkers navigate to the company website. Personally, I have our website bookmarked in my toolbar on both work and home computers. I guess my coworkers don’t visit xxxxx.com as often as I do 
But, I was still shocked and appalled as to how ten C-Level Execs navigated to my site. They all knew the url. It’s five letters. It’s the company name. Yet, they didn’t type the address into their browser. Instead, they navigated to Google (which was the homepage for most. Google, not iGoogle, mind you), typed our FULL url, xxxxx.com, into Google search and then clicked on the PAID link. I kept my mouth shut, but I wanted to shake them and say, “Hello! You are wasting my marketing dollars!”
Their actions also make me wonder if SEM is such a waste. Maybe. But, I think the real waste is dumb/lazy marketers who don’t think. Time and time again, we’ve watched CP+B not buy campaign urls or Super Bowl advertisers not buy paid search or lawyers instead of US Airways buy terms.
I have no doubt that the debate between SEO vs. SEM will continue for quite some time. I’m also convinced that instead of pausing to think proactively, BDA’s will continue to forget the “little” details.
Today, before you launch Campaign A, stop. pause. Remember the little things.
Posted in Interactive Media, Marketing
Vegasbab,
Love this post. Thanks so much for linking to our post about Geico’s spend on SEM. It’s one of our most popular posts!
I love your anecdote about your C-Level executives clicking on sponsored paid links! That’s hilarious. I agree – spending your time and energy working on organic search will reap longer term, more profitable benefits. Keep in mind that search is changing and dumping tons of money into SEM is really like buying a huge media buy on traditional paid media – it’s an awareness campaign.
Anyway, great post. Thanks again!