You just launched your new website (or launched the redesign) and now you’re sitting around waiting for the orders to come in. But wait a minute, something is wrong… there doesn’t seem to be any. It’s like your site doesn’t exist.

Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but unless you have a well-publicized site or many websites linking to yours, you’re going to have to trust the search engines. And if your site doesn’t rank on the first three pages of results, there’s a good chance you won’t be found at all.

So… you know what comes next; That’s right, you need a healthy dose of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to make sure your site shows up on the search engine results pages. Do this and you will soon be following traffic to your website.

“Right,” I hear you say. “Let’s do some search engine marketing then…”

Well, that’s certainly a good start! But first you need to craft your approach to maximize your profits. let’s call this you search engine marketing strategy. In order to create an effective strategy, you need to understand a bit more about how search engine marketing works. Currently, we can broadly separate search engine marketing into two different approaches:

1. Organic: including search engine optimization, linking from other websites and offline marketing.
2. Paid out: including pay per click, paid shipping and online advertising (ads).

So, to help you further, I’ve listed the pros and cons of each SEM approach below and outlined my recommendations.

Organic: Advantages

1. Most of the work behind search engine optimization (SEO) is a one-time activity, so there is usually a set upfront fee charged.
2. Changes made to your website will likely still be relevant and drive traffic to your site a year from now.
3. Credibility: Most people (research indicates between 60 and 80 percent) will click on organic results instead of sponsored (paid) results.
4. If you rank well on one of the major search engines (Google/Yahoo/MSN), chances are you’ll appear on most search engines around the world.

Organic: Disadvantages

1. Changes must be made to the code of your website. Normally the changes are invisible to visitors. However, if you have invested heavily in a site that is not search engine friendly, the process can be time consuming and expensive; and, occasionally, it may be necessary to make significant changes to your site’s copy, navigation, or design. Of course, you will ultimately see benefits if you commit to the necessary changes.
2. The results (rankings and traffic) start off slow. You will normally see results within 3-4 months.
3. There can be no guarantee. Since the search engines themselves call the shots, you can’t predict how many rankings you’ll get for a particular search term or engine; nor can it predict how much traffic you will get to your site.

Paid: Perks

1. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising programs are quick to implement. It usually takes two to three weeks to get up and running. Google AdWords is live as soon as the campaign starts, and Overture listings are active within 3-5 business days (after being reviewed by an editor).
2. Nothing needs to change on your website, although I would recommend creating specific landing pages for each ad, as they have been shown to increase conversions (but that’s another topic for another time!).
3. There is no limit to the number of keyword terms or phases you can bid on.
4. PPC is good if you intend to run promotions through your site, as you can turn the PPC campaign on and off whenever you want.
5. You can dictate where the listing appears on the results page (within the sponsors ad area) and determine what the ad says.
6. It’s very easy to test all your different search terms and offers, etc., and measure the results.

Paid: Disadvantages

1. Clicks can be expensive. Bidding wars break out often.
2. You must continue to pay for clicks every month. If your budget is ever cut, your listings will disappear, along with your search engine traffic.
3. Most people (research indicates between 60 and 80 percent) will click on organic results instead of sponsored (paid) results.
4. It requires an investment of time to constantly monitor and adjust listings, or a budget to outsource this activity.
5. Listings are subject to editorial acceptance. With SEO, you can state whatever you want on your website (which is where search engines pull your page title and description). But with PPC, publishers insist that all listings be objective and that you don’t compare your business to others. This means that even if you are the “biggest” provider, you can’t claim it.

Now that you know a bit about the pros and cons of paid and organic search engine marketing, you need to decide how to approach your online marketing campaign.

Organic marketing is probably best if:

1. You want to spend some time on search engine marketing up front and make it pay off in the future, possibly on all the search engines out there in the world.
2. You have a budget to do a job now and want to save money later.
3. Their site is pretty simple, without a lot of complicated bells and whistles.
4. You can afford to wait a month or two to see the results.
5. You don’t want to have to manage or maintain anything on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Paid advertising may be for you if:

1. You want to get going quickly.
2. You have a promotion where you want to be able to turn a PPC campaign on and off.
3. You want to be able to test search terms, products, or offers and see results quickly.
4. Your site is not search engine friendly and you don’t want to invest in changing it.
5. You are confident that you will have the budget to spend in the long term and have the time to hold positions on a regular basis.

Of course, many companies and businesses tackle organic and paid SEM at the same time, and this is what I would normally recommend to drive maximum qualified traffic to a website.

If you are currently designing your site or redesigning an existing one, make sure your developer knows how to create search engine optimized code or is working closely with an SEO consultant. Getting it right the first time will save you time and money in the long run. And it doesn’t have to cost a fortune if you address this up front, either.

If you have an existing site that you want to optimize, you may have a tough decision to make if your current site is not search engine friendly. If your site has been built with extensive use of frames or dynamic pages (your URL may look like: http://www.yoursite.com/page.asp?id=8), the cost of rectifying these issues can be daunting. . If this is the case, now may be the time to seriously consider redesigning your site sooner than you had planned.

Either way, using a small paid ad campaign (pay per click) prior to optimization can be a great way to determine those essential keywords to use throughout your site copy by recording which keywords customers respond to the most. in his campaign.