SEM meaning: paying per click to rank on top

On top for as long as the budget runs

SEM, search engine marketing, is the fastest road to the top of Google: you are there the moment your campaign runs. Search "roofer utrecht" and the top results often carry the label Sponsored. That is SEM. You pay nothing for being shown, only when someone clicks. In Europe that is almost always Google Ads, because most searches run through Google.

SEM is the paid sibling of SEO. In SEO you work on your site to rank higher for free; in SEM you buy visibility per click. SEM works the same day, SEO after weeks or months.

Three labels, one field

In the US and UK, SEM usually means paid search ads. Some use it for paid and organic search together. In Belgium and the Netherlands, agencies say SEA, search engine advertising, for the paid part and keep SEM for the whole field. A Belgian agency quoting "SEA" is quoting what a British one calls SEM or PPC. Ask what is included before you compare offers.

First per impression, per click since 2002

Google launched AdWords in October 2000: text ads next to the search results that any advertiser could set up. It soon became an auction per click, and that model still runs paid search today. In June 2018 Google renamed AdWords to Google Ads, as the ads by then also ran on YouTube, in Gmail, in Maps and across millions of other sites.

An auction on every search

For every search, Google runs an auction between the advertisers bidding on that term. Who comes first depends not only on the bid but on Ad Rank: the bid, the quality of the ad and the page it leads to, and the searcher's context. Google gauges that quality partly with Quality Score, from 1 to 10, based on expected click-through rate, how well the ad fits the search, and the landing page. A better ad can rank higher with a lower bid, and pays less per click: you do not pay your bid, only enough to keep your place.

Click prices, budget and management

You set your own daily budget and maximum bid. What a click costs depends on your industry and region: a few euros for a local service, far more for lawyers or insurance. The guide to Google Ads cost lists click prices by sector, and the Google Ads budget calculator works out your own budget. If someone manages the campaigns for you, add a management fee; what agencies charge is in digital agency cost.

Paid search in more than one country

Run ads in more than one country and each market gets its own campaign: its own language, its own search terms and its own click prices. A literal translation of Dutch keywords misses what Germans or French-speaking Belgians type. Send each click to a landing page in the searcher's language, and keep separate budgets so one market does not eat the other.

When paying per click pays off

Choose it when you need requests fast, when you test a new service, or for terms where SEO will take a long time. Choose SEO when you want lasting traffic without paying per click; what that costs per month is in the SEO cost guide. Most companies do both. Torn between search ads and Instagram ads? Read what Facebook ads cost next to Google, and see how Google Ads works for a shop in its own area in Google Ads for local businesses.