Last updated on June 19th, 2009
Search advertising seems to be adjusting as the economy seeks to find balance. As customers spend less, the incremental per-click cost of SEM (pay-per-click) is rising in relation to sales, making it much more expensive than SEO when considering results.
As Niuni Ji puts it in a recent DM News article, “…there is no incremental advertising cost for every lead or sale delivered. As a result, corporate decision makers will likely place a greater emphasis on the balance of SEM versus SEO. While SEM’s instant gratification is tempting, a balance will see increased ROI.”
Of course SEO does take months to produce the level of rankings required to achieve substantial sales increases, but consider that once that level is reached, your cost/sale decreases dramatically. And that can only be good news to a business in times like these.