These results are placed there because companies pay the search engine each time a visitor clicks through to their site.

When companies pick the right keywords to target and monitor, a pay per click campaign can be extremely effective.

Many executives like this type of campaign because they only pay for those people who click through to their site. If nobody clicks on the link, no money is spent.

Natural Search ResultsOn the other hand, when search results come back from a search engine, the websites listed in the heart of the page are those pages that are the best fit for the keyword.

Each search engine uses complex algorithms so that the most relevant websites will naturally appear at the top of their results.

As consumers realize that pay per click ads are placed at the very top because companies buy that position, consumers are looking to the natural results more and more.

It is possible for a company that is nowhere to be found to take steps to increase their placement on the results page.

In fact, those companies who do nothing to increase their page ranking are giving potential millions of visitors away to their competition.

Deutsche Safa Rashtchy said last year, “The search market has become the Holy Grail of Internet advertising and continues to grow faster than our expectations.

Our initial estimate of 7 billion by 2007 is most likely to be too conservative and we believe we are still in the early stages of an expanding and large market.”

In April, PricewaterhouseCoopers released a study that showed the dramatic increase in keyword search revenue spent the previous years.

While most other advertising techniques are failing, keyword search investments and pay per click campaigns are skyrocketing (for more information, please see http://www.10xmarketing.com/internet-advertising-statistics/).

What Does This Mean for Your Company?As a business owner or leader, you might ask yourself the following questions:

?Where does my business appear in search engine results for keywords associated with our company??Are we putting any money into search engine marketing?

(Remember that almost 90% of Internet users are using search engines to find products and information)?How much Internet revenue is our company bringing in??How potent is our Internet presence compared to our competitors?

If your company is not competing at the level it should be, perhaps it is time you looked into focusing more of your time and efforts into Internet advertising techniques that are successful.

Don’t be left in the dust as your competitors invest and reap the rewards of the Internet.

About the Author:This article was written by Mike Barton of 10x Marketing. Mike works with various companies to help them increase their Internet presence through Internet marketing techniques like search engine optimization, link popularity, and affiliate marketing programs. For more information regarding and advertising strategy that will increase your marketing ROI, visit http://www.10xmarketing.com/res/advertising-firm.asp