SEM = SEO + SEA + SMO
You must see these different acronyms regularly on the internet today. If you are a neophyte, their meanings are probably unknown to you.
If you are used to the web, you certainly know a little more, but there may still be some hesitation.
It must be said that many people always mix them up and disseminate information that is not always very accurate.
We are here today to put an end to that and understand once and for all the relationships between these different terms.
What is SEO?
SEO = Search Engine Optimization – Optimization for Search Engines
SEO (for Search Engine Optimization – Optimization for Search Engines) is nothing other than “natural” internet referencing. That is to say all the techniques which aim to improve the positioning of a website in a search engine such as Google for example. SEO focuses on three pillars: technique, content and popularity. It is necessary to act on these 3 pillars in order to improve the visibility of a site on the internet.
The technique concerns everything related to the performance of a site (server, technologies used, programming languages used, etc.). The content concerns the heart of the site: its texts, its images and its videos.
This is the material of the site and what is directly offered to Internet users. Good content is comprehensive, unique and original. Finally, popularity concerns mentions made by third-party sites to another website.
To illustrate, good content will probably be picked up on other websites and shared. This is a strong indicator of popularity and therefore of quality for a search engine. A site that gets a lot of relevant inbound links will be perceived as a quality site.
What is SEA?
SEA = Search Engine Advertising – Advertising on Search Engines
The SEA (for Search Engine Advertising – Advertising on Search Engines) defines what is commonly called “paid” referencing.
It actually concerns the advertising broadcast on a search engine. Google is the best example with its famous Google Ads advertising network.
You will indeed notice that for certain queries, so-called sponsored results (“ads”) appear on the search engine.
These are purchased ad placements. In the case of Google Ads, for example, we buy keywords at auction. If our bid is high enough, our ad will appear when someone specifically searches for those keywords.
What is SMO ?
SMO = Social Media Optimization
The SMO (for Social Media Optimization) includes all activities aimed at developing the visibility of a company through social media.
The weight of the latter is not always easy to grasp when focusing on search engines. Indeed, if Youtube and Google+ (the two babies of Google) have a certain weight, that of other social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Viadeo and Dailymotion is more relative. Youtube and Google+ are essential in a “search” strategy today.
It is indeed common to see Youtube videos appear in search results (and Youtube videos appear much more often than Dailymotion or Vimeo videos, for example) and we must not forget that Youtube is itself the second search engine. in the world in terms of search volume. The same goes for Google+ which, in addition to personalizing the SERPs according to the connected user profile, offers many options related to visibility on the results pages: Rich Snippet company, Authorship thumbnail, Google+ Local listing, etc. .
The weight of other social media is more relative (always from the perspective of the search strategy that we are dealing with in this article).
The profiles go up from time to time, but it is essentially by their power of communication, virality, federation and loyalty that they are very widely distinguished.
