Search Engine Positioning and optimization (SEO) is generally much less expensive than certain PPC (Pay-for-Click) programs and less costly than any other marketing campaign you can conduct, both online or offline. It usually costs much less than direct mail, renting broadcast email lists (which may be illegal now in many states and some Canadian provinces), banner ads, print ads, booths at trade fairs, etc.
Confusion may arise because pricing isn't consistent at all in online advertising. Some have price tags in the five or six figure range, others have costs of just a few hundred or a thousand dollars.
However, most cost a significant amount. Many businesses may not have the financial resources to go ahead in such a program. The much less expensive and better way to do it is with a good, serious and professional Web site positioning and optimization service available from specialized SEO firms such as Verbat.
For a lot less money than any PTBL offering, a professional SEO program can bring you a lot higher ROI (Return on Investment). That means a fairly smaller investment could significantly raise your targeted site traffic by anywhere from 45% to 85% or sometimes even higher.
Furthermore, remember that we are talking about targeted traffic here. First, there is a big difference between targeted traffic coming from major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Global Business Listing, DMOZ or Alta-Vista, and so-called "general, click-able traffic" from casual searchers that clicked on a PTBL link mostly out of curiosity.
If you still think that SEO experts and the optimization programs we run are still too expensive, think for a minute the large amount of dollars being spent daily by large multi-national corporations on TV advertising, radio "spots" and newspapers. Just a thirty second spot on a large TV sports special such as the Superbowl can easily run in the tens of millions of dollars.
The irony is, do you really think it is quality, targeted traffic? When people go on Google or Yahoo, they have a clear idea of what it is they are looking for. They want to find it fast, without any hassles. And they are looking for quality search results. The only way your web site will be on top of SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) is to have it professionally optimized by an expert team that truly understands SEO.
The old adage that "Time is Money" also holds true in professional SEO. When all is considered, an investment with a professional SEO firm might be the best solution to many if not the majority of companies and businesses. If it were all so easy, everybody would be SEO's and the world would probably run out of websites to optimize!
