An article I penned for Identity Marketing magazine, republished on the eBlox blog, about giving up on organic search optimization. For those of you that are considering organic SEO (optimizing content and inbound links to rank higher in organic searches) vs. diving into pay-per-click advertising, this might provide some insight as to why I feel the latter is often a better use of your time, especially if you are engaged in e-commerce and want to actually sell your products online.

You should still optimize your site for organic search – as I've said in class, keywords are everything – and try to get those higher-ranking, relevant inbound links. But the article specifically addresses the situations where organic SEO is a losing battle because of the intense competition. In this situation, the targeted, controlled method of advertising offered by pay-per-click may be your best bet. Read the article here and let me know what you think.