You might be seeing a lot of comments and opinions about SEO on digital marketing forums and most comments are coming from newbies in the industry asking, “Why is SEO important in digital marketing?” 

Some also ask, “What is the difference among SEO, SEM, and SMM? Aside from that all of them start with S?”

So on and so forth…

Since there’s a lot of questions piling up our inbox, I will discuss the first 2 questions first.

Why is SEO important in Digital Marketing?

Have you gone through a restaurant without a name, no signage at all (nothing saying whether it offers pizza or burgers or pasta), and worst, no windows.. Just 1 door and tables inside.

It will make you curious for sure and you’ll get inside only to find out that it’s not a real restaurant, you just thought it’s one because along with it on the road are pastry shop, mini market, and a place where you can smoke.

Then you realized that it is still better if the shop has a proper name onto it, or maybe images of what they are selling, a window so you can see it from the outside and you don’t need to line up for you to see what’s inside.

When people get a great experience from what you offer, they’ll tell their friends, they’ll visit you and there will be an increase in your views or revenue.

Whichever is appropriate.

It can also be compared to a plain website that is not optimized. The second one is an optimized website.

Just like the window to the restaurant, SEO is a vital part of the process when it comes to digital marketing. It is the process of making a web page easy to find by prospects.

Easy to find, easy to crawl, and easy to categorize.

What is the difference between SEO, SEM, and SMM?

All of the above are commonly used when discussing digital marketing.

You would feel confused if it’s your first time hearing or reading the acronyms but here are the meanings:

Those successful websites still engage through these marketing channels.

SEO is search engine optimization. The goal of SEO is to get search engine users to your website through the organic search results.

SEM is search engine marketing. This includes SEO and paid search (the paid ads that you see at the top of Google when you perform a search).

SMM is an abbreviation for social media marketing. Social media marketing includes paid Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram ads as well as non-paid social media marketing efforts.

If SEO helps your website increase traffic through the organic or natural way, SEM earns traffic through the process of purchasing ads on search engines.

SMM refers to both organic and paid digital marketing efforts on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Social media marketing targeted many different activities and many consider this to be the future of digital marketing.

While social media networks become the hub of activity online in the modern age, this is where consumers engage each other in conversation.

They build relationships, perform a transaction, give reviews and opinions.

Also, it’s also the backbone of business and brand engagement for large subsets of the population.

A large population around the world uses these social media channels for leisure.

Conclusion

As we discussed the difference between SEM, SMM, and SEO, it shows that digital marketing with SEO on your hands before using any ads will actually make a difference.

Whether you like it or not, SEO is a process that takes a lot of time and effort.

Heck, you may even need some help from an SEO expert or search marketing agency because it may take months or even years to rank for specific terms or not rank at all!

But like what I am telling you, it is a long term strategy that you can view every single month, repurpose it, or tackle it again.

You can either:

1. Learn practical tips on how you can start your SEO journey and then implement necessary actions, or;

2. Let your competitors become ahead of you.