Difference between SEO and SEA.

The difference between SEO and SEA

SEO, SEA, Google Ads, Analytics. These are terms you nowadays can’t avoid if your company is active on the internet. But can you still see the forest for the trees? What do these ‘complicated’ terms involve and what are they good for? In this blog post we explain the difference between SEO and SEA to you.

SEO

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization, also known in the Netherlands as zoekmachineoptimalisatie. With search engine optimisation, you try, using various factors, to make the website or a web page (better) findable in Google’s organic search results. The organic search results are the free, natural results that are shown as a result of a searched word or word combination. These results are found in the middle of the search results page and are shown below the ads (SEA). But more about those ads later.

A web of factors

As mentioned, the score of the website or web page depends on dozens of factors. Google is vague about these factors and never really makes statements about them either. Over the years, of course, the factors do become clearer, simply because users try them out. It’s naturally important that the web page contains relevant content that matches the keyword you want to be found on. Google needs to judge the page well, but the text also needs to be readable for your visitors. On top of that, it’s essential that links point to your web page from other (external) valuable web pages. This is also called link building. Technical factors too, such as the structure of the website in programming language, influence the results in a search engine. Too much code at the top of the page reduces findability, because Google reads websites from top to bottom. So always make sure the keywords you want to be found on are placed at the top and appear further spread throughout the text.

SEO = patience

When applying SEO, it’s good to realise that it can take several weeks or months before Google’s robots have found your web pages. Once the page has been found by Google, this is called being ‘indexed’ in industry jargon. After that, it’s good to keep optimising the page, for example by adding other links and keeping the information on the page up to date. Google likes this. Want to analyse your website visitors? This can be done very well with the Google Analytics tool, in which all statistics about your website can be read.

SEA

Instead of optimising like with SEO, with SEA you advertise, in other words Search Engine Advertising. With SEA you advertise in Google’s search results, which appear right at the top and bottom of the page. With a search result, a maximum of four ads are shown at the top and four ads at the bottom of the page. Google can, by the way, change this again just as easily, since in the past there have sometimes been three, and they’ve also appeared on the right-hand side of the page. In any case, you recognise the ads by the small green symbol containing ‘Ad’.

Paying for your visitors

The difference with SEO is that using SEA does come with costs. You place ads in Google, and advertising simply costs money. SEA revolves around setting up targeted campaigns using specific keywords you want your ads to be shown for. You only pay once a visitor actually clicks on your ad, and therefore not when an ad is merely shown; pay per click. With the right budget and the right search terms, the right audience is reached. With SEA you determine your own budget and set for yourself the maximum you want to pay per click.

SEA = being instantly visible

Advertising in Google is only successful once catchy, attractive ad copy is written for the visitors. Usually several variants of ads are written and tested, to see which ad performs best. Sometimes it works to ask the visitor a question, and sometimes it works to play with your USPs. The difference between SEO and SEA is that search engine ads don’t need as much time to become visible. With SEA you decide entirely for yourself in which period you want to be visible. Creating the ads and monitoring the ad results is done with the Google Ads tool. In Ads you’ll find all the statistics about your campaigns, and you can also change and adjust the campaigns.