Search marketing can be more effective than traditional ads.  Why getting natural or organic search results are more effective.   By John Bolduan RealWebMarketing.com

Whenever I see the yellow pages in someone's office or home, I think to myself what an outdated concept those books are becoming. They're printed once a year or maybe twice a year and people know that the day they come out, they're out-of-date. The information can't get updated, they take up a lot of space and it's hard to find what you're looking for. So why do businesses spend so much money in yellow pages advertising? Probably because they don't understand the benefits of good search marketing.

An effective search marketing campaign can cost the same as a large yellow pages ad but can deliver a constant stream of business from a larger audience than local yellow pages ever could. Search marketing is the wave of the future, making sure that your website gets seen by a wider audience, namely the Internet. In fact, you could look at the Internet as a big electronic yellow pages. When people are searching for a product or service, they now go to the Internet more often than traditional print media like yellow pages or newspapers. I would say that these more traditional print advertising vehicles will suffer greatly in revenue shortfalls as people come to depend on online searches to find what they need. 

So what should your business do to have an effective search marketing strategy that will bring in more customers than more traditional print ads? The first thing to do is not to cut off traditional print ads if they work for you. If they bring in business, then supplement them with a good search marketing plan phased in over the next couple of years. Take some of the budget that you would use for print ads and move that over to search marketing. This way you can make a gradual transition which shouldn't hurt you in the short term and create long term benefits.

If you don't have a print ad budget or don't use yellow pages or newspapers for customers to find you, then move your money and effort totally into search engine marketing. You will always get more business, leads and exposure from the Internet and starting a good campaign to get higher rankings is the best way to spend those valuable ad dollars. A lot of products that you sell may have coop advertising dollars which can help stretch your marketing efforts too. Start today by re-thinking your advertising strategy to gain more market share. Look at your print ads and the large expense that they are, then look at the same amount and what it can buy you in search marketing. I think you'll find that the same amount of investment will benefit you and your company for years instead of being lost in last year's yellow book or yesterday's newspaper.