• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, September 13, 2005

More than one in three search marketers who tap agencies for both pay-per-click services and advice on optimizing their sites to appear high in the natural listings said that optimization efforts pay off more than paid search campaigns, according to a new study by search engine marketing company iProspect and JupiterResearch.

For the study, researchers surveyed search marketers last month, asking them to compare the return on investment for search engine optimization and paid search. Thirty-five percent of 138 survey respondents said that optimization led to higher ROI, while 11 percent indicated that paid search produced better results; 9 percent said the results were similar.

iProspect President Robert Murray said he hadn't predicted that more marketers would attribute results to optimization than to search efforts. "Given that all you hear about in today's press is pay-per-click, pay-per-click, pay-per-click, this actually surprises us," he said.

The study also found that many respondents either didn't measure ROI (21 percent), couldn't measure it (10 percent), or were unable to distinguish between ROI for paid links and optimization (14 percent).