We advise our clients to utilize both Search Engine Marketing AND Search Engine Optimization together. Here's Why:
1. Users prefer Natural or Organic listings when researching, and will click on these listings more frequently than sponsored link text ads. But...
2. Because of the timeframe it takes for SEO to work, and due to the fact that no company is able to optimize on every product they sell, search engine marketing complements SEO well and can help build traffic immediately. Read more on SEM.
3. Most importantly, the costs and ad positioning of a Pay-Per-Click campaign rely heavily on each keyword's "Quality Score." Briefly, Google's Quality Score algorhythm places importance on how relevant a landing page is to the keyword sponsored. The higher the Quality Score, the better ad positioning, the more clicks, and the lower "cost-per-click." This means more efficient results and better ROI. So, if a Pay-Per-Click campaign is implemented, and the landing page is not optimized, quality scores will suffer, and will cost advertisers more money.