Pay Per Click Prices Increase Precipitiously

Further proving that natural SEO is far more cost effective, eMarketer.com recently reported that the average price for pay-per-click search engine listings increased by 16.5% from 2Q to 3Q, 2006.

Their data comes from multiple sources and clearly shows that paying per click for advertising is not for the faint of heart or small of budget. With the average price per click of $1.48, many small and medium-sized business have been priced right out of the market.

Clearly, natural Search listings is the way to go for those on a budget. With natural, you do not pay for the traffic that comes to your site, you only pay for the SEO team (like SpryDev) to optimize your site. Once that's done, your expenses decline to almost nothing while your traffic continues to flow.

Recently, the new phone books came out and I was again struck by how SEO (Search Engine Optimization) really is a paradigm shift in the marketing world. With old-world advertising, you pay for an ad which lasts for a limited time. With the yellow pages, you get exposure for one year only; with a magazine it's for a month or two; newspapers give you a single day and with paid search it can be for one single second! The advantage, of course, is that you get immediate results.

With natural SEO, the results aren't quite so immediate (although they can be) but once your site reaches the top of the search engines, the cost to keep you there greatly decreases. You have a distinct competitive advantage over your competitors who are spending on "time-dependent" advertising that will run out unless they pay again and again.

Clearly, the big winners in the search wars will be the advertisers who recognize this trend and find a way to climb up and stay at the top.