- Search engine marketing (SEM) includes SEO for unpaid results and SEA for paid ads. For local businesses, the Google Business Profile is added.
- In our experience, SEO usually takes effect after three to six months; ads generally deliver first results after a few days. If you stop paying, the ads disappear immediately.
- Responsive search ads combine up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions. With the “Presence” location option, your ads only reach people who are in your area.
- According to Google, AI Overviews and AI Mode require no special measures: Optimizing for AI search is SEO. Special structured data or an llms.txt are not necessary.
Search engine marketing (SEM) includes everything you use to win customers through search engines. This includes the unpaid search results (SEO) and paid ads (SEA), and for local businesses also the Google Business Profile.
We first published this article in 2023 and revised it in October 2026. New are AI search, today’s ad formats and the current status of Business Profiles.
Search engine marketing combines unpaid results and ads
SEO (search engine optimization) brings your pages forward in the unpaid results. You pay for the work on website, content and links. You pay nothing for individual visitors.
SEA (search engine advertising) refers to paid ads in search engines. Google labels them as “Sponsored.” With search ads, you usually pay per click.
| SEO | SEA | |
|---|---|---|
| Placement | unpaid search results | ads above and below the results |
| Costs | work on technology, content and links | price per click and campaign management |
| First results | in our experience usually after three to six months | usually after a few days |
| If you stop | your pages remain in the index, competitors can overtake you | your ads disappear immediately |
We explain the basics of the ad auction in detail in our article SEA explained. Here, it is about how both channels work together.
Google leads in Germany, on desktop Bing counts too
Google handles the majority of searches in Germany, on smartphones almost all of them. On desktop, Bing has a significantly higher share. Statcounter’s figures per device are in our comparison Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising.
For your search engine marketing, this means: Google is the first channel. If you sell to business customers who search at work, we also review Microsoft Advertising.
With SEO, you win visitors from the unpaid results
Search engines continuously capture the pages on the web and sort them by topic. SEO means making it as easy as possible for Google to recognize and evaluate your pages.
Choose search terms where you can rank at the top
A keyword is the search term people enter on Google. Think about the words customers use to search for offerings like yours, and use exactly those on your pages.
A shoe store in Nuremberg has a better chance of a top position for “shoe store Nuremberg” than for “women’s shoes.” This also applies in B2B: Always ask yourself what your audience is searching for. We prioritize topics by how often they lead to inquiries and sales.
Your content answers your customers’ questions
In Google’s early years, it helped to spread a keyword across a page as often as possible. This resulted in barely readable texts. Today, what counts is whether a page answers the searcher’s question.
- Write clearly and completely.
- Structure with paragraphs and subheadings.
- Use synonyms and related terms.
We build pages that answer these questions with your knowledge, your data and your examples.
Links from your industry strengthen your pages
Links from other websites (backlinks) act like recommendations for Google. Links from topically related pages count more than arbitrary links.
Purchased links without labeling violate Google’s spam policies. We earn links through expert articles and press work. What to look for in providers is covered in our article on link building agencies.
The technology must allow Google to read
Three technical foundations belong on every website:
- short load times,
- encrypted transmission via HTTPS,
- a display that works on smartphones.
We fix what prevents Google from reading and evaluating your pages, from load times to indexing. Details are in our article on crawling, indexing and ranking and in the example of WordPress SEO.
SEO remains an ongoing competition
SEO is not a project that is finished after a few months. Google ranks your pages in comparison to your competitors’ pages. If they improve their pages, they can overtake you.
In Google Search Console, you find out which search queries bring visitors, with impressions, clicks and position. We measure which pages bring inquiries and revenue and shift the effort there.
SEA puts your offering above the unpaid results
Ads appear above the unpaid results. Where competitors advertise, your best organic result only appears below them.
An auction determines the cost per click
You do not pay a fixed amount for the ad placement. With every search, an auction decides which ads appear. In addition to your bid, the quality of the ad and landing page counts. How Ad Rank and Quality Score are related is shown in our article SEA explained.
We separate search terms with purchase intent from research and comparison. The budget flows first to where orders are generated.
Responsive search ads combine up to 15 headlines
Unlike the former expanded text ads, with responsive search ads you enter up to 15 headlines of 30 characters each and up to 4 descriptions of 90 characters each. The minimum is 3 headlines and 2 descriptions.
Google Ads tests the combinations and shows the ones that best match each search. You add two path fields of up to 15 characters each to the display URL, for example www.beispielshop.de/Laufschuhe/Herren. This way, the searcher sees a readable address even if the landing page has a long URL.
Good ad copy names the service, location and benefit
Write from the searcher’s perspective. A text answers four questions: Who are you, what do you offer, for whom, and what speaks for your offering?
The more specific, the better: “employment law specialist attorney Berlin” matches the search more precisely than “lawyer.” Headlines that are often clicked in ads provide ideas for page titles and descriptions on your website. We align ad and landing page with the same question.
Local ads only appear in your service area
Anyone who wants to win local customers limits their campaigns to an area: a radius, postal codes or towns. You exclude areas you do not travel to.
The advanced location option is important. The default is “Presence or interest”: Then ads also reach people who are merely interested in your region. With “Presence,” you only reach users who are currently or regularly in your area.
For Killisperger Alois, a company for earthworks, demolition and transport, we limited the ads to a radius around the location. In the test against the previous campaign, a new bid strategy brought 191% more inquiries, and the cost per inquiry fell by 66%.
The Business Profile gets you into the map results
The Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business, is your company’s listing in Google Search and Google Maps. For local searches, the map results are at the very top.
Maintain contact details, opening hours, category, photos and posts completely. The profile’s performance data shows which searches people use to find you and whether they call or plan a route. Twenty concrete steps are in our tips for the Google Business Profile.
For Brühmarkt, a retailer of coffee equipment, we expanded the Business Profiles. According to DataForSEO, bruehmarkt.com then ranked in the top ten Google results for 60% more search terms.
Apple and Microsoft also maintain their own business listings: Apple Business for Apple Maps and Bing Places for Business for Bing Search and Bing Maps. Keep your name, address and phone number there just as up to date as on Google.
SEO and SEA use the same search terms and data
Both channels work with the same search terms. What a Search campaign shows about clicks and inquiries also applies to selecting your SEO topics. Conversely, ads promote the pages that still rank far back organically.
An example from our client projects:
- urnen.de: We aligned the pages with searches for the material and type of urn. According to DataForSEO, visits from unpaid Google Search rose by 79% during our engagement.
In AI search, the rules of SEO still apply
Google shows AI Overviews, AI summaries with sources, above many search results and also offers AI Mode in German. In addition, there are AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini that answer questions with recommendations.
According to Google, optimizing for AI Overviews and AI Mode is still SEO. The features are based on the same ranking and quality systems. No special structured data or llms.txt is needed for this. How your company gets mentioned in the answers of ChatGPT & Co. is described in our article on Generative Engine Optimization and on our page on GEO.
For SEA, the placement of ads is changing too. In Germany, they appear above and below the AI Overviews; ads within the overview are so far only available in English. Details are in our article on ads in AI Overviews. Since the end of August 2026, ads in ChatGPT can also be booked in Germany.
Google’s automation learns from the data you provide
Google sets bids automatically with Smart Bidding and matches ads to the intent of a search with broad match keywords and AI Max. This automation is available to all advertisers.
It steers toward the goal stored in the account. That is why we first set up conversion tracking and store margins and order values in the account. This way, Google bids more for the clicks that earn you more. Every week, we review the search terms and exclude what costs money and sells nothing.
These are the tasks we take on in search engine marketing
Whether you run SEM in your own team or hand it over to an agency is a question of effort and experience. Our article In-house team or agency helps you decide.
At UnitedAds, we take on:
- SEO: prioritizing topics by inquiries, fixing technical errors, building content, earning links from your industry.
- Search campaigns: sorting search terms by purchase intent, storing margins in the account, aligning ad and landing page, reviewing search terms weekly.
- Google Ads beyond Search: Shopping, Performance Max, YouTube and Demand Gen, steered by return.
Accounts, content and data remain your property, even after the collaboration ends.
Conclusion: SEO, SEA and the Business Profile work with the same searches
Search engine marketing has three parts: SEO for unpaid results, SEA for ads and the Business Profile for local searches. Ads bring visitors within a few days; SEO builds visibility over months.
Search engine marketing is ongoing work: Competitors improve their pages and ads, Google changes formats and features. AI search changes little about this because, according to Google, it builds on the same foundations. What matters is that both channels are aligned with the search terms that bring you inquiries and sales.
