Special Report: Search Engine Marketing

Sea Eagle spent $11,000 in paid search on Overture in 2001, and $35,000 per year since then. It began advertising on Google in 2002, and spent $2,000 in 2002, and $37,000 in 2003 and ‘04.

Hoge says the money is well spent. “For a good search term, we can sometimes make $10 to $20 per Web visitor,” he says. “But for random, untargeted traffic, that might be only 20 to 30 cents.”