Differences Between SEO and SEM

The terms Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing aren't the one and the same. Although both of them work online to boost up the brand awareness and to increase the online traffic of a business, they are different by their nature. This article discusses on SEO and SEM and its differences.
Search Engine Marketing:
Search Engine Marketing which is termed as SEM in short, is a subset of the internet marketing strategy and it is over and above SEO. It is a process of online marketing with the goal of acquiring more visibility either through free traffic i.e., SEO or via paid traffic,(Paid search advertising).
In paid search advertising the owners tend to buy advertising spaces in search engine results to appear in front of the searches. For example, Google Adwords wherein the owners of the websites get their Ads displayed on the search engine results and they are required to be paid only for the clicks on their Ads and so called Pay-per-click or PPC.
Yahoo and Bing too have a similar system of search engine marketing.
Search Engine Optimization:
Search Engine Optimization is said to be a part of Search Engine Marketing. SEO is a set of rules that are being followed by the owners of the Web Development Services and the blogs to make them user-friendly, faster and easily navigable and thereby improve their quality for increased web traffic through improved search engine rankings.
It is considered to be the most cost-effective form of advertising campaigns for any online presence. Higher the rank that a website gains in SEO the greater the brand awareness and the web traffic that it generates.
Pros and cons of both SEM and SEO:
SEM remains to be an instant gratification media of advertising as an advertisement could be set up in Google Adwords campaign in half an hour and the advertising could be running within an hour almost.
Without making any changes to the structure and architecture of the website and without even building the website there is possibility for the Offshore Development Service owners to advertise on their online presence and that too they are required to be paid only when the advertisement is clicked and not on their display.
The cons of SEM are that as each and every click need to be paid by the advertiser all the traffic acquired has to be paid. Moreover there are chances on the side of the competitors to increase the advertisement expenses of the advertiser by fraud clicking.
SEO on the other hand is a long term approach in advertising and includes much best practice in web design standards. It is considered to be the cost effective to the advertiser since the major search engine spiders like the Google and the Yahoo visit the websites at free of cost to add it to their index for their rankings.
Good content with constant updates, easy navigation and targeted well searched key words often helps the websites to be ranked high in the search engine rankings.
Which is better?
It is advisable for the newly commenced eCommerce businesses to opt for SEM exercises to acquire instant web traffic. As time lapses depending of the progress of the company in question the resources could be allocated to SEO further. It would be commendable for the companies to spend 50- 50 both in SEM and SEO in the long run.
To conclude, a deep analysis of the benefits of the advertising campaigns along with its existing potential dangers would be much helpful in creating a cohesive push.