Paid Search is a type of advertising that allows advertisers to appear on the organic search page among the search results. An example of Paid Search is Google Ads contextual advertising. With the right ad settings, the advertiser's website is displayed at the top of the search results, before the free search results. If a user clicks on the link, the website owner pays the advertising platform for that click - this advertising model is called Pay-Per-Click or PPC.
Paid search results are marked in the search results list with the label «Advertisement» to avoid misleading users. Keywords for which the website is displayed in the search results are highlighted in bold in its description. Clients who are attracted through this traffic channel will be marked in analytics as Paid Search. If a user makes a query related to purchasing a product, in addition to paid links, products from Google Shopping Ads will also be shown on the organic search page. They will take priority in the search results and will also be marked as «Advertisement». By clicking on the product card on the search results page, users will be directed to the seller's website, so this traffic can also be considered paid.
Paid search allows you to take the most advantageous position in the search results, but simply launching an ad is not enough. The advertising platform evaluates:
- the size of the advertising bid — how much the advertiser is willing to pay per click;
- the quality of the ad — how well the content meets the platform's standards;
- relevance — how well the ad matches the search query that the advertiser plans to show it for;
- competition — how many advertisers want to display their ad for this query.
The main advantage of Paid Search is that the website owner does not have to wait a long time for their site to reach the top of the organic search. The advertiser can independently specify the target audience that, in their opinion, should see the ad, as well as choose search queries to show the ad. Thanks to the PPC model, the ad will be profitable for the advertiser because they will only pay for clicks on the link. Of course, provided that the ad is set up correctly and the bids are chosen correctly. This way, you can get a quick and quality result, attracting traffic to your site.
