One of our favorite “tricks” for Internet marketing is to work “click ads” (paid search ads) and website search engine optimization back and forth.

Click ads can be great but every time someone clicks through to your website, you’re paying maybe $1.50. That can get expensive fast. In a lot of cases it can be a big winner. It also is a way to generate immediate traffic to your website since it usually takes a while to build up your “natural” search engine rankings.

Google, Yahoo and other companies that sell click ads give you a lot of feedback that tells you how many searches are occurring for the various search terms, how many click through to your site. If you also track how many of those turn into prospects or sales, you REALLY know what search terms to push in optimizing your site.

Similarly you can use how people are finding your site through natural (free) searches to suggest key words you may want to buy clicks for. And, as your natural search traffic volume increases, you may want to or be able to cut down on your click ad budget.

Think of natural and paid searches as integrated parts of your overall Internet marketing effort – along with publicity, and free and paid directory listings.