If you want to drive traffic to your Web site, engine optimization (SEO) almost always has a role. But before your launch into an SEO program, take a quick rest stop and consider--
1. How best to optimize organic search for your Web site.
2. How organic search fits into your overall search marketing strategy.
Organic search results are simply the “main” results you get on Google as opposed to the upper and side banner results which are paid for by advertisers. Google’s ability to find the best results possible for your search term/keywords is their bread and butter and it could be yours as well, depending on your Web strategy. Search engine optimization drives “free” traffic to your site.
Sounds great. So why wouldn't everyone want to build a search strategy around organic search?
1. It forces you to make your site extremely focused with a limited number of keyword phrases.
2. It requires frequent review, updating and modification to hone the precision of your keyword phrases and adapt to the ever-changing rules of the major search engines.
3. Organic search is not a "quick fix". It can take months to achieve top rankings.
4. And there are no guarantees. Depending on your industry, first page positioning may be difficult or impossible to achieve.
PPC advertising and other paid search options deliver immediate results, but like any marketing tactic carry their own set of disadvantages. For further reading--
Bitwise Logic discusses the relative merits of organic versus pay-per-click (PPC) search marketing.
