Companies need to stay on their toes to maintain their competitiveness. In order to attract customers, they spend big money on marketing and promotional campaigns. While these campaigns are not always guaranteed to work, one strategy seems to always bring home the bacon — and that is SEO. Good ranking in major search engines almost always brings in relevant traffic and higher sales conversion.

Entrepreneurs who are new to internet marketing, however, tend to ask: Do SEO and online marketing strategies deliver? Every discerning businessman is wondering if such efforts make as favorable return on investment as offline (traditional) advertising does. Let’s do the math.

According to a 2006 survey, over forty percent of internet marketers found that their PPC campaigns were effective in reeling in buyers, and 33% found SEO to be a very effective form of online marketing. Email marketing and email marketing got a lukewarm response (less than 30% of those interviewed were satisfied with the results of their efforts), but this has not stopped them from pursuing their internet campaigns further. In fact, many companies are investing on widening their internet exposure – particularly on SEO. A research by Merrill Lynch shows that in the US, total spending on SEO rose by 177%. Almost fifty percent of the interviewed companies’ budgets went to online marketing efforts, presumably because businesses want to reach the increasing number of internet users.

Those who want to survive the information age have to face the ongoing challenge of going beyond boundaries and tapping into other markets to grow sales. Search engine optimization is still one of the most effective ways of achieving this goal.

The good news is that SEO and online marketing services are now more affordable. There are affordable SEO packages for businesses on a small budget. There are even services you can get at absolutely no cost, such as free links. You just need to know where to look.