Should SEO and SEM Marry Each Other, Date or Just Stay Single?

Lorna Li says in: SEO + SEM: Should SEO & SEM be jointly managed in one department?

In my previous question "How to build an enterprise SEO program & team from scratch" http://is.gd/Nxr I am exploring am exploring what the ideal structure of a top-tier, fully fledged enterprise Search Engine Marketing program should look like.

From my research, there appears to be a number of recommendations as to why SEO and SEM should be closely integrated, or at least managed in the same group, rather than in completely separate departments, or farmed out to different agencies.

Should SEO & SEM "married"? Why? Please explain the benefits of close collaboration between the SEO and SEM teams.

What are the disadvantages that come with separation and lack of transparency between the 2 programs. What happens if SEO and SEM are handled by different agency vendors and how do you recommend overcoming the separation. What specific information needs to be shared between the 2?

Image courtesy: SXC.HU (My favourite Free Stock Image Site)

Asif Anwar says:

I presume that you are referring SEO as Organic Search Marketing and SEM as other paid Search Marketing (e.g. PPC, PPM, and Search Engine Placement). Anyway, it's all about keywords and search. In that sense, both have same goal. So, is the goal so common that they should get married. Or should SEO and SEM date, or just stay single?

What if SEO and SEM get married?

Let's define marriage first:

"Marriage is about mutual understanding and about the economy of utilizing the limited combined resources in an efficient way for better life, if not, better future."

Well, that's not a perfect one, but in Economics, it should sound like that. If I translate that for corporate language than it would be this:

Mutual Understanding

If SEO and SEM are operating differently, then they are learning in different ways. This can mean doing the same homework over and over again. Not doing the homework separately is very healthy for the economy. That's why we see the giant companies acquiring (or marrying) the small companies. So that, the homework is not done again in the same economy. Even though, the giants have the setup to do it all over again. But, that's bad for the industry. You are increasing the competition without adding any value to the economy. So, whoever the husband between SEO or SEM is, both of their understanding can help each other greatly. The SEM can use the learning from SEO and vice versa to reduce marketing cost and increase ROI. Isn't that what the companies and advertisers are looking for? With mutual understanding, they can mutually reduce their homework and add value to the economy.

Utilizing Combined Resources

Before marriage, you probably have been using a small blender for milk shake that served your need. But, after marriage you can afford a better blender, which costs less than 2 blenders alone. i.e. you can also cut the capital investment and cost if you have them together. Moreover, they also can interchange their duties to perform other tasks.

Utilizing Limited Resources

You definitely have a budget for your marketing, from which you can't go beyond. So, you should economize on getting more sales with less money. Since you are in fixed budget for SEO, you can cutout the variable budget for PPC, when you have competitive advantage in organic results for a specific keyword. So, for PPC you can only explore the markets, where you don't have competitive advantage on. That's should make the great use of your limited budget. So, managing these in separate units would mean extra cost for you, since there wouldn't be any synchronization between these two units.

Utilizing Resources in an Efficient Way

When you have total understanding of Internet Marketing, you can have the flexibility to implement your strategy and set the players in the field. Thereby, you can play a good and strategic game utilizing every resource efficiently. Moreover, you can also reduce waste or spillover, which is a major factor in reducing cost and maximizing profit.

Enjoying a Better Life

Companies can gain greater ROI from the marriage and the management can also get all the information for their strategy from one source. So, that'll make life easier and comfortable. It is obvious that combined SEO and SEM saves money for you. In return, you get greater ROI.

For a Better Future

In harsh situations, when comfortable life can't be ensured, marriages are made in the intention to have better future. Investments are also like this. Getting the reward right away isn't possible. Combined investment in SEO and SEM can mean quicker break even. Moreover, as resources are utilized efficiently, the chance of having better life is quicker than having them separated.

What are alternatives if they can't marry each other?

Date each other?

Now, if it happens that SEO and SEM can't marry, then they can go out on dates from time to time to share things together. Even if they are separate, they should share each others learning from time to time by synchronizing each other and go toward a mutual understanding. That way, some cost for advertising and marketing can be reduced by removing Ad spending away from SEM, when SEO has organically reached its goal for a specific keyword. However, it can be more time consuming if you are to synchronize learning within these units.

Be neighbors?

If they don't synchronize, then the best way to learn from each other is by staying in the same premises and experiencing social and corporate activities together. That also can expand their learning.

What happens if SEO and SEM are Single?

SEO and SEM in the isolated island may mean loss in terms of the many benefits I mentioned above. But, not always their marriage is necessary. Their marriage can encourage cost reduction. But sometimes for the sake of online branding and converting visitors into sales takes more than strict control of organic search marketing and paid search advertisement.

In the sales funnel, from visitors to sales, the communication and information feeding should be made several times before the purchase. So, limiting your doorways for the visitors to your business can harm you, if you are planning to sale big.

In case of online sales funnel, remember that:

• Not all search engine visitors are your customers,
• All those that find you when searching may not be your customer (direct competion starts here)
• All the people that return to your site, doesn't mean that they will make an inquiry,
• All the people that makes an inquiry about your product or services, doesn't mean that they will purchase your product.

So, in all stages of the sales funnel, there should be multiple ways for the visitor to get information about your company or product. If you have done SEO and simulteniously running PPC for content network (AdWords for AdSense), the chances are, when the visitor is reading something related, s/he might come back to your site.

Otherwise, after going a long way, the visitor might buy from the last good outlet s/he could remember, even though you were in top of the search (SEO efficient) when s/he found you earlier. This happens to us always, when we go to a special product mall. Everyone visits the front stalls, but you happen to buy from a stall inside the mall. There is almost no extra competitive advatage for being the front stall (SEO effecient), when you have product that visitors always move around to find a good burgain.

Another fact is, the objectives of SEO and SEM is not same. Most of the time SEM/PPC concetrates on Conversion and SEO on Branding & Reputation Building. I said "most of the time", not "always". e.g. Most popular keywords may not convert well and will mean unnecessary PPC spending on visitors that are not in action mood to purchase. But, popular keywords are good for Branding and Branding is one of the major target of SEO. This difference in objectives is a good reason to stay in separate units.

Confused? Well, if you have a product that visitors doesn't care much about going for a good burgain (usually for cheaper products), having SEO and minor PPC dating is sufficient. If you are a small company, then having SEO and SEM get married would be a right choice. If you want to sell big, then SEO and SEM should stay single.

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Philanthropists are the greatest marketers