Search engine marketing (SEM)

Search engine marketing is a form of emarketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) through the use of contextual advertising, paid inclusion and Pay-Per-Click (PPC).

PPC is the sponsored links. The sponsored links are the first results appear in the colored box in SERPs and/or the right column of SERPs. The Search engine displays the ads in response to the initial search query and the advertiser, only pays once the ads are clicked on. This makes PPC an efficient way of advertising, even for smaller businesses.

Search engine marketing (SEM) provides companies with several advantages: 
• Ability to target (Ability to deliver the right offer to the right user at the right time) 
• Fast 
• Measurable results
• Flexible 
• Less production time and lower costs 
• Higher ROI relative to other media