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Perhaps, a combination of the two could offer the best of both worlds, says Kim Benjamin.

The White Company, a mail order, high street and online retailer of home accessories and clothing, wanted to grow its customer base and target buyers with families to shop online at its Little White Company brand.

It was also looking to reduce its dependence on rental lists for customer acquisition. Three years ago, together with search marketing specialist Ambergreen, The White Company developed a search strategy using pay-per-click (PPC), which has boosted sales and achieved conversion rates of 5.9 per cent for specific campaigns. It says this is a return on investment that is considerably higher than any other direct marketing method it uses.

The White Company now devotes 60 per cent of its online marketing spend to paid search, and this year it aims to increase web optimisation by using a natural search strategy alongside existing paid search campaigns.

Customer acquisition

The White Company is not alone in its approach to web optimisation. The decision to use paid-for search, natural search or a combination of both to increase a brand's online visibility and drive internet sales is one issue up for debate at the forthcoming Lucrative Search Marketing conference (see box).

Paid-for search is an established method for web optimisation, particularly when looking to quickly increase brand exposure. But its popularity may have peaked, due to the fact that paid-for search prices have increased dramatically in recent years and because of the rise in click fraud (where an affiliate or competitor clicks repeatedly until all the advertiser's budget is used up).

Warren Cowan, managing director of search marketing consultancy Greenlight, says that clients can now expect to pay between £3,000 and £10,000 a month on a PPC strategy, depending on the sector, and adds that return on investment has declined for some industries.

"Once you've optimised a PPC campaign and reached a premium level, you've spent all the money you possibly can, and you have to go somewhere else," says Grant Whiteside, technical director at Ambergreen.

With natural search, once a brand has achieved its desired listings position, the traffic is then free, but there is an increasing demand on brands to invest time and money in building natural listings, as more websites compete for the same space.

"PPC has been a simple concept for marketers to grasp and implement, largely due to tools developed by the likes of Google and Overture," says Jonty Kelt, product manager at DART Search, a search and marketing division of digital marketing specialist DoubleClick. "PPC doesn't demand any technology expertise. Natural search, however, needs a team of technology-savvy people to design, build and regularly monitor the web interface."

Search success

The biggest risk with natural search is that over the long term, brands are at the mercy of search engine index changes, which can simply alter ranking systems. And the reality is that natural search offers little in the way of guaranteed results, although developments in analytics software are striving to meet this challenge.

"There are ways to measure natural search, but the results are not as trackable as those of a PPC campaign," says Kelt. "The best way is to measure uplift in sales and conversions from the date you have implemented changes. The success of natural search is more trends-based as it's not tracking individual clicks."

Another issue to consider is what proportion of online marketing budget to invest in natural search. The return, after all, is unpredictable, may take up to a year to materialise and is most likely to have a limited lifespan.

"We recommend keeping a natural search budget to a low outlay to reduce risk, under 20 per cent of budget," says Karl Gregory, marketing director at multimedia marketing provider Touchpoint. "Website optimisation involves taking a long-term approach and building a sustained natural listings strategy. This means a long process of building links from other websites, optimising content for relevant keywords and regular review."

As James Hawkins, head of search at online marketing provider DGM points out, the optimum situation is for both paid and natural search to work with one another.

"As a rule of thumb paid search should be used as a tactical tool offering a responsive pricing or product-led call to action, with natural search listings providing a long-term strategic base. Consider the desired objectives: is this a quick win to hit the market in a short space of time or is it a long-term branding exercise?", he says.

While few will deny that natural search returns are the ideal, businesses cannot afford to miss the opportunities offered by paid search. And, with Bigmouth Media's latest estimate showing that a staggering 90 per cent of web users find websites through search engines, the race is on to be noticed and to maintain top online rankings.

LUCRATIVE SEARCH MARKETING

Where: The Dorchester Hotel, London When: 14 March 2006 Website: www.searchmarketingconference.com

Why visit?

This one-day conference, run by Revolution magazine, will feature a panel debate on affiliate search marketing, as well as sessions assessing the pros and cons of paid and natural search, and how to optimise your website to get to the top of consumers' natural search listings. Speakers include Neil Scaife, head of marketing communications at More Th>n, Gareth Gason, director of online retailing and marketing at Hilton International and David Graham, search business manager at MSN UK.

NEED TO KNOW

Paid-for versus natural search

According to Mick Dillon, business development manager at digital agency Design UK, a paid-for search campaign will almost immediately drive traffic to your website, while optimising your website for natural search will take longer - in some cases up to eight months.

"Paid-for search, however, will require a bigger budget than natural search, but it does give the brand control over the terms it has visibility for and the amount of website traffic. Natural search visibility is subject to search engine algorithm changes and is much less predictable," warns Dillon. The two methods can compliment one another, and industry experts are increasingly advocating that both be undertaken together.

"Natural search logs can throw up keywords that you never would have considered adding to your paid search campaign," says Karl Gregory, marketing director at Touchpoint. "These keywords will often be very niche and cheap and, therefore, offer a way to improve ROI on paid search programmes through increased keyword targeting." From a planning perspective, it makes sense to target generic, highly-trafficked and expensive search terms through natural search and the less expensive, niche terms with paid search.

"The downside to natural search is the time it takes, plus there are no guarantees in terms of visibility," adds Dillon. "Avoid getting caught up achieving visibility for terms that are highly-trafficked, but don't convert well. Don't be fooled by new technology that attempts to trick the search engines into giving your website a temporary boost in search results." Google recently removed BMW's German site from its web index, saying that the car manufacturer has violated guidelines by using a technique that artificially boosted its search ratings.

POWER POINTS

- Paid-for search is easy to implement and trackable, but it can be expensive and vulnerable to 'click fraud'

- Natural search is cheaper, but it takes longer to implement and is unpredictable

- A firm should allocate no more than 20 per cent of its online marketing budget to its natural search strategy.