Banners up? Cookies distributed? No, I'm not inquiring about the success rate of your local church fair, but actually about the effectiveness of your online marketing strategy. Internet marketing is fast becoming one of the most dynamic advertising mediums around and to miss out on the benefits of SEO could have dire consequences for your business. The simple truth is that a business which lacks an online presence in this day and age might as well be invisible.

A lot of business owners, particularly those with a tangible presence in the market place, prefer traditional media like print, radio and television ads. The biggest factors preventing business owners from employing search engine marketing experts to optimise their websites include, respectively, distrust and cost. When you think about it, this does make sense in a way ? how much money would you be willing to fork out for an internet marketing campaign if you were told that the results could take up to three months to be noticeable? It would take some convincing to get your chequebook out, wouldn't it? The following information might change your mind.

Let's explain it by means of an example. Say for instance XYZ Events Coordinators has a website lacking optimisation for key phrases consumers would type in to get hold of their services i.e. ?wedding planners?. This will mean their target audience will be unable to find their website when researching the kind of service XYZ provides. Being invisible online will mean that XYZ will have to spend a lot of money doing outbound marketing, pouring their valuable marketing resources into things like direct mailing, print ads or television and radio advertisements.

Although tried and tested, all of these traditional modes of advertising have one thing in common ? they are intrusive. When you use this kind of ?push? marketing you are forcing your message on your target audience, a tactic that is fast becoming irrelevant as consumers wise up to traditional advertising strategies.

In contrast, when you spend your time and money making your website more search engine friendly you will be able to communicate directly to users who are actively looking for the kinds of products and/or services you provide. This is great because you'll no longer have to influence your target audience's way of reasoning, you simply have to merge with their current way of thinking. Essentially you are reaching the very people that are looking for the information you have. What could be better than that?

Furthermore, Search Engine Optimisation represents a long-lasting approach to marketing that makes use of an actively evolving medium. An online marketing strategy is also a far more affordable option for small to medium businesses than traditional advertising mediums usually are. The costs for a direct mail campaign, for example, can really add up over time; while a single television advertisement can consume a small business owner's marketing budget for the entire year. On the other hand, if a small business starts off by optimising their website early on in their developmental phase they could run a good SEO campaign, a business blog and a PPC program for the same amount of money it would cost to run a single medium-size print ad for 20 days a month.

That said, traditional advertising media still has, and will probably always have, a firm foothold in the market place. The point is to be open to alternatives. If your current marketing campaign is not working, optimising your site could make a world of difference. If it is, a good internet marketing strategy could ensure you get an ever bigger slice of the pie. Why not give it a go?