SEO and Digital Marketing, the same or different?

 

As a business owner, you want to maximise your business reach and boost profits. Nowadays, the simplest and most effective way to do this is through Digital marketing. However, this catch-all phrase covers many different services and options, so how can you work out what you want or need? Here's an overview of the basics to help point you in the right direction.

 

Digital Jargon

Digital marketing is a relatively new and fast-paced industry. It is filled with acronyms and jargon that make it difficult to know where to start. Understanding the basics is essential if you want to have a constructive relationship with a Digital Marketing Company. Commonly used acronyms are:

●     SEO- Search Engine Optimisation

●     SEM - Search Engine Marketing

●     SMM - Social Media Marketing

●     SERP - Search Engine Results Page

●     PPC - Pay Per Click

●     CPC- Cost Per Click

●     DMM - Digital Media Marketing

 

What is Digital Marketing?

Now you've got some of the acronyms under control, what about the actual services on offer? Digital Marketing covers media promotion on the internet and digital devices like tablets, mobiles or desktops. Typical digital marketing channels include:

●     Social Media Marketing

●     PPC

●     Content Marketing

●     Video Marketing

●     Affiliate Marketing

●     Email Marketing

●     SMS Marketing

 

Just like a traditional marketing agency, a digital marketing agency will develop a targeted marketing strategy for your business using the various channels at its disposal.

 

What is SEO?

SEO is less creative and more technical than digital marketing. It is also narrower in scope. Essentially it is a means of increasing both the quality and quantity of traffic to your website without paying for advertising. In other words, it is optimising the structure and content of your website to naturally rank higher on SERP's. An SEO Agency specialises in SEO and understanding the complex algorithms used by search engines such as Google and Bing to rank results.

 

The Overlap

Digital Marketing and SEO are distinct specialities but have a large overlap, so many believe them to be the same thing.

 

A Digital Marketing agency will take care of the creative side of a campaign. They can produce content and optimise that content for SEO. However, they don't offer the same technical SEO services as an SEO Agency.

 

An SEO Agency aims to increase web traffic to your site by organically improving your web ranking. To achieve this, an SEO agency uses complex analytics to establish the keywords potential customers are using, and then include those keywords on your website. They then optimise your website's structure and content to help your business move up search engine rankings. An SEO agency achieves this through on-page SEO, Off-page SEO, link building, website restructure and content optimisation. Unlike a digital marketing campaign, it may take several months for you to see tangible results but when it comes to SEO, slow and steady wins the race.

 

In A Nutshell

To sum up, if you want to grow your business and engage with new customers, an active online presence is essential. How you build and maintain your online presence will come down to your long term business goals and will also influence whether you choose an SEO Agency or Digital marketing company. For instance,  if you need to sell a product fast, then a digital marketing company should have the answers. However, if you're building a blog and want to establish yourself as a subject authority, an SEO agency will be a better fit.