SEO and SEA Comparison Reloaded – What’s Changed?

In 2005, we published “SEO and SEA Comparison,” and to date, it’s still one of our most popular blog posts.  The reality, though, is that a lot has changed (and surprisingly stayed the same) in the past seven years.

For starters, we’ve replaced the term “SEA” or Search Engine Advertising with PPC – Pay Per Click advertising. This broader term applies to both search engine ads, as well as social media ad formats. 

SEO is still SEO, however, the key signals that search engines use to evaluate websites have shifted considerably since 2005, as outlined by SEOMoz:

With Google’s latest algorithm updates, the emphasis on the number of links to improve your SEO has shifted to focus more on the relevance and authority of the links, the quality of your site content, and the overall user experience.  So since 2005, we’ve introduced a new concept to achieve top listings…

SEO-cial = SEO + Social

Social signals have become increasingly important to search engine ranking algorithms.  When used with traditional white-hat SEO and PPC, it creates a dynamic digital marketing program:

Viewing SEO, PPC, and context marketing as a single unit – SEO-cial – affects your SEO in a multitude of ways. 

The quality of your content on your properties – not only your website, but your social media channels as well – also contributes toward your SEO.   High-quality, keyword-targeted content gets shared and talked about, which earns you more relevant in-bound links from authoritative sources!

The key takeaway from our update is not to compare SEO and PPC, but to emphasize how vital it is to use them in tandem.  As components to an SEO-cial approach, they each have their own distinct qualities that, in unison, make them powerful tools in allowing your page to dominate search engine rankings.