Visibility is the way users can locate a site’s content in Google’s SERP, or any other search engine. In the case of SEO, the results are visible naturally and organically . In the case of SEM, paid ads are plac in search results. They usually appear first with a small banner above them that says “Sponsor .
For example, if you search for
“Chinese restaurant,” you’ll see that the first specific database by industry results are paid, while the next few are organic.
However, recently, Google has begun implementing modifications to its SERP, showing more paid and AI-generat results, known as SGE (Search Generative Experience).
Example of SEO and SEM positioning visibility
Traffic: Quality vs. Quantity
Traffic represents the people, or users, who visit your website. This traffic can be organic or paid. In the case of SEO, traffic is higher quality because it involves users specifically searching for relevant information. SEM, on the other hand, provides a large volume, but the quality will vary depending on the keyword, audience segmentation, and the specific campaign.
Want to understand this better? I’ll share an gambler data example: through SEO, a cooking blog can attract readers interest in specific recipes. With SEM, you can target ads to a broader audience, but some of the clicks may come from people how can we optimize our site content to rank? who aren’t necessarily interest in cooking, resulting in low-quality traffic.