This thought is borne out in a finding by WebSideStory that indicates that PPC advertising provided a conversion rate of 3.4% while sites relying on organic (optimized) sites saw a conversion rate of 3.13%. The study began in January of 2006 and ran for eight months and more than 57 million search engine visits were used to document the findings.

A combination of both techniques may improve the overall conversion rate, but much of the decision-making you are faced with has to do with perceived value.

For instance, if your business is relatively new and you are waiting for the various search engines to find you and rank your site you may discover PPC advertising to be a primary tool in client conversion. If, however, you are ranked well in search engines you may not feel a compelling need to purchase PPC advertising or if you do your marketing budget may be reduced in size.

The temptation is to simply rely on PPC advertising without working toward proper optimization of your site. I suppose on one level this may make sense IF you are only interested in purchasing PPC advertising for the duration of your business.

Essentially if you are willing to provide some work at the beginning of your site design to develop proper optimization techniques you will ultimately save money in the long run.

PPC advertising definitely has a place in online marketing, but it doesn't have to be your only long-term strategy.

Of course, the positive aspect of PPC advertising is the highly effective nature of where the ad ultimately appears. PPC is a highly targeted type of advertising that makes the best use of marketing dollars.

PPC advertising should not be avoided, but rather seen for what it is; a stop gap client conversion technique. The above statistics point to the fact that PPC advertising is effective, but not significantly more so than the site rankings of an optimized site.

When you have a plan that encompasses both short-term and long-term objectives you may likely see PPC advertising as a great way to jump start your online business, but there may come a time when you may find yourself relying on PPC advertising less and less. When that happens you can feel confident you have done an admirable job in optimizing your site for organic traffic.