Thanks Webnauts you made an excellent case everyone should include
SEO in their long term advertising and marketing strategies. With hundreds if not thousands of companies all competing for the coveted top 10 (1st page) listings for any particluar hot keyword, the need for
SEO is only going to become greater and more competitive.
I can't stress enough to our clients and potential clients how important it is to get in the game early. With Google putting more and more importance on the length of time companies have ranked well for a particular keyword it will become more and more difficult to displace companies who have already hunkered down in the top 10 positions.
One other thing that makes
SEO such a valuable marketing tool that wasn't mentioned by Webnauts is the near real-time performance tracking that the combination of a good
SEO campaign linked to a good analytics / data mining program can achieve for a client.
This in my opinion is one of those under utilized advantages that
SEO has over traditional advertising and marketing.