What is SEM (Search Engine Marketing) or PPC: When we talk about Search Engine Marketing, we are mainly talking about paid marketing or advertising on a search engine like Google. On a more general meaning of the term we can also include other search engines in it like Bing and yahoo etc. While searching something on Google, you may have noticed that the first few search results come with a prefix “Ad”. These are paid ads by Google. When someone clicks on these ads, the advertiser is charged a certain amount. That is why it is called “Pay Per Click” or PPC.