SEM vs. SEO: What’s The Difference? CSS. HTTP. URL. HTML. It’s possible the only field that uses more acronyms and initializations than web marketing is the military. The military uses them to save time. Sometimes, it seems like our industry only uses them to confuse newcomers. And it’s not uncommon for even experienced professionals to mix them up. Some of the most common mistakes happen when it comes to the similar and related, but distinctly different concepts of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). Once upon a time, in the halcyon days of the early internet (that is, circa 2001), SEO referred to a part of SEM. But, as the language and nuance of web marketing shifted, search engine marketing came to refer to a specific type of digital marketing. So, what’s the difference? Sometimes also referred to as organic (SEO) and inorganic (SEM) search, both are focused on using Google (and to a lesser extent other search engines) to drive traffic to a spec...