Why Optimise for Search Engine Rankings?
SEO is one part of the marketing you will use to build visitors to your site. Marketing is about being where your customers are and putting your message in front of them. Search engines are the primary method that people use to find what they are looking for on the web. Search Engine Marketing, whether paid advertising or organic search engine optimisation, is powerful because it is keyword targeted.
The searcher is finding you precisely because they are looking for what you offer. Promoting via the search engines not only puts you where your customers are. It puts you where they are right at the moment they're looking for you. Right now people are using search engines to find the products or services you sell or the information you provide. If they're not finding your site, they're finding one of your competitors.
Couldn't I Just Pay to Rank?
You can pay to appear in keyword linked search advertising through the various Pay Per Click programs offered by the search engines. You should definitely consider this as part of the marketing strategy for your site. You should consider other forms of marketing too. It is hard to imagine a site though that shouldn't have search engine optimisation as part of it's marketing strategy, though. There are all kinds of studies and opinions on conversion of paid ads verses organic placement and there are different circumstances and situations where one may be superior to the other. There are also many other marketing avenues which will overlap into a well meshed Internet marketing strategy for your site. What it comes down to, though, is "do I want to pay $x per visitor or get them for free?" Usually, the answer is both. At the end of the day if I'm not in the results then my competitors are.
Cost Effectiveness
One of the reasons that search engine optimisation is so important is because of the cost efficiencies involved. With recession firmly gripping the consumer and business customer alike, how will your company respond? Making sales has become harder and marketing budgets are probably slashed but you need customers. It's a catch 22 in many ways. It is often in tougher times that businesses identify efficiencies and Internet Marketing is efficient. The Internet is the leading research medium around. In many ways it's the only show in town. If you are serious about your business or the information you provide, you can't afford not to be found when people search the web. When you are found, however, you receive massively cost effective, targeted, branding and visitors that you can engage, often at a fraction of the cost of offline channels.
