Search Engine Advertising

Search-engine advertising (SEA) is a branch of online marketing. Advertisements in the form of a text or images are posted on search engines such as Google or Bing. These ads then appear prominently in the SERPs. This method belongs to the main source of income for search engine providers.

Examples of search marketing include pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and SEO. Search marketing is an umbrella term for all paid and unpaid techniques that businesses and retailers use to increase their visibility across the internet and various search engines.

The two primary search networks that SEM professionals target are Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords) and the Bing Ads. Google AdWords is actually two networks: Google Search Network and Google Display Network.

Search engine advertising operates using an auction-based system, in which advertisers bid on certain keywords relevant to their product or service. It should be mentioned, however, that bids and clicks are different.