SEM is short for search engine marketing. In short, it refers to the process of attracting website traffic by buying advertisements on search engine advertising platforms like Google and Bing. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads are the most common type of search engine marketing. When an ad from a business shows up in the search engine results and a user clicks on it, the business will be charged by the search engine platform. With the help of PPC, a business can create various adverts that search engine users would use to find products or services.