There's no denying the power of search engines in driving customers to your business. A whole new realm of opportunities for marketing your business online has opened up just in the last few years, and the landscape of online marketing changes almost daily.

To take advantage of the opportunities online marketing provides, you must first navigate the sometimes perplexing maze of search engines, search results, paid placement, keywords, natural results, PPC, SEO, ROI and other fairly baffling jargon that didn't even exist just a few short years ago.

The good news is that understanding some of the terms and techniques of search engine optimization ("SEO" for short) can result in unprecedented success for your company. I guess we have your attention now.

The bottom line is that paid placement (paying to show up on a search engine's result page for a given search term) and search engine optimization (optimizing your Web pages so that you show up in results naturally), can provide an extraordinarily high return on your investment.

Paid Placement

Paid placement is the standard for getting top positioning in search engines. You're in control of how much you spend, and you only pay when your link is clicked-also known as PPC, or "pay-per-click." That's performance marketing, and it's an unprecedented opportunity for businesses just like yours.

With paid placement, you can capture significant traffic in key categories, and you can position yourself against your competitors in a way that's much more affordable than traditional advertising and marketing.

Paid search engine placement allows you to go after niche markets, perhaps even those markets your competitors haven't found yet. Paid placement allows for analysis and monitoring so that adjustments can be made in your strategies, optimizing not only your effectiveness in reaching your customers, but also allowing for refinements that will result in more qualified traffic at less cost.

While the benefits of paid placement are many, there are some drawbacks.

First, bid costs are rising dramatically in many sectors. You probably already know this if you've done investigation into paid advertising. It's often tough to go head-to-head with the big boys. The lesson to be learned is that pay-per-click campaigns require active, skilled management.

Many businesses find that they do not have the time or budget to manage a paid placement program in-house. Proper management of such programs requires an investment in training and tools, a strategy to stay on top of best practices, and an intimate knowledge of the always-changing PPC landscape.

It probably won't surprise you that we recommend working with a company specializing in online marketing to overcome some of these obstacles.

The cost-effectiveness of paid search engine placement, or ROI, "return on investment," explains why so many B2B marketers are transferring a significant portion of their advertising budget into their online marketing programs.

Natural Results

The best online marketing plans include not just paid placement but also include a plan to optimize "natural results."

Natural results are those results that appear on a search results page "naturally," or just because a certain page has a high relevance to a given search term. Natural results are worth their weight in gold, because natural results bring in business at no cost, other than the cost of preparing your Web pages to maximize their likelihood of appearing prominently in search results.

High natural rankings can deliver significant visibility and credibility. Many customers who use search engines view natural results as more trustworthy than paid, or "sponsored" results. It takes some time to achieve high natural rankings, but the effort is more than worth it.

Creating pages that result in high natural rankings is a tricky business. Search engines change their search algorithms ongoingly, and keeping up with those changes could be a full-time job (and is for many in the online marketing field).

Done right, pages that result in high natural rankings can reap great rewards.

Front and Center

It's time to optimize your search engine results.

It's important to remember that your online marketing programs should always be designed to be profitable. The world of search engine results isn't a crapshoot where you throw keywords around hoping something will stick.

Some say it's part science part art.

Ultimately, building the most attractive, user-friendly site in the world won't mean much if you can't get customers to stop in and buy, so search engine optimization is well worth your valuable time.

Next, we take a look at specific goals, and how search engine optimization and having a sound online marketing strategy can help you reach your goals.

By Lawrence Johnson, the CEO of Indextree, Inc.

Indextree helps manufacturers and distributors dominate their markets by designing and implementing winning lead management, online marketing, search engine optimization and pay per click strategies. Call 1.800.670.9950 to speak to an Indextree Online Marketing Expert.