Paid search advertising is when a company pays a search engine to display their ad when certain search queries are run. For example, when you run a search on Google, you’ll see the sites that paid to be advertised there, and you’ll see the other links that are related to that topic.
This type of advertising is also called PPC or “pay-per-click,” since the buyer of the advertising space only has to pay if the user clicks on their link. The great thing about this is that your name is getting out there, even when they don’t click. So in a sense, you’re getting some advertising out there for free, and when someone does click to read more, you can expect them to really be interested and engaged in the material that you present.