Paid search are search results that appear at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) and are marked as either “ad” or “sponsored”. It is mostly advertised on a pay-per-click basis, meaning that publishers have to pay only after a user clicks on the link.
There are two types of paid searches: results that look exactly like any other website, with the name of the page, link, and description or product carousel.
The advertised result always corresponds to the search of the user. Therefore, if they search for a vacation in Canada, they will not be shown ads for water bottles. It makes this ad format quite efficient since users are actively searching for the product or service and are more likely to convert.
In order to create a paid search, follow these steps:
- choose your platform for paid search
- choose the preferred location
- choose keywords to avoid advertising to irrelevant searches
- choose how exactly the keywords should match in order to show the ad
- create an ad (usually headline 1, headline 2, and description)
- set how much you are willing to pay for a click, so make a bid (the lower the bid, the lower or less frequently the result is shown)
