SEA and SEO: What’s the difference?

Published on : 22 April 20204 min reading time

How can you tell the difference between AES and SEO? Most people have now understood how essential it is to be well positioned in the results of a search engine in order to get maximum traffic. But it is less obvious how to go about it. In broad terms, there are two ways to manage the referencing of a website: by choosing SEA or SEO, or both.

The principles of SEA

SEA (Search Engine Advertising) is the principle of paid advertising. It is easily recognizable since it appears prominently on the first page of the results. Generally, sites appear with an insert that says “ad”. The person who used AES therefore paid to appear effectively in first position. They want to be sure to attract the maximum amount of traffic to a specific query. This paid method amounts to buying advertising space by investing in keywords related to the theme of the site, on the specific positioning of links (backlinking strategy). When an advertiser pays a search engine to obtain this service, it is confronted with many criteria that will decide its positioning (click rate, quality of the page …). This Quality Score is what makes it possible to vary the place given to advertisers and it is very demanding. To understand all the subtleties of SEO, go to www.oni.fr.

The principles of SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization), better known under the name of natural referencing, is a practice which makes it possible to make the page of a site or the site itself go up in the first results of a search engine. A site is well referenced when it appears in the first result page, ideally in the first three proposals. It is therefore essential to work on its natural referencing to generate traffic. One of the keys to achieve this is optimization. Thus, in order to appear “naturally” among the best results, it is necessary to work on the editorial content as well as other parameters. This is the specialty of SEO agencies! To positively influence the natural referencing of a site, you have to please the search engine algorithm. The search engine constantly scans the thousands of pages that are created every day. It indexes them and places them according to their added value. To do this, the algorithm takes into account the general architecture of the site, its HTML markup, but also its loading speed, its activity, its backlinks… It is a long and meticulous work, but it is worth it, because these natural methods are verified on the long term.

The main differences between the two SEO strategies

SEO does not require much maintenance once the optimization has been done. While SEO work requires rigor in the first instance, it lasts efficiently and the pages then rank more and more easily. Of course, it is necessary to keep a watchful eye and be on the lookout for possible changes in the algorithm (and there are often some!). It is always possible to check the position of a site afterwards and make improvements. This is something that unfortunately cannot be done with ASP. Paid referencing generates ephemeral results, which essentially depend on the money invested in the client’s advertising campaign. You have to be prepared to allocate a certain budget in this strategy to be well positioned. The differences between SEO and ATS strategies are therefore clear: it is a question of time and money. A person who needs to get results easily will be more likely to turn to a paid advertising campaign. It’s all about web marketing strategy, to be determined in advance to make the right choices. If it is a question of building a long-term strategy, SEO is rather advised.

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