The New York Times has looked at Search Engine Optimisation to increase your website’s ranking in search engines. The Times asks whether it’s better to “tinker with your Web site so that it ranks high in search results? Or would you be wiser to spend money on the paid listings that appear beside those results?”

The story follows a recent study by Engine Ready that analysed “18.7 million visits over two years to Web sites run by 27 of the company’s roughly 500 clients. The study found that paid listings had a slight edge over “organic,” or unpaid, search results: visitors who clicked on paid links were 17 percent more likely to buy something, and they spent about 18 percent more on each order.”

However the study found the most valuable kind of website visitor “was people who arrive at a site by typing its Web address directly into their browsers or clicking on a bookmark. Such visitors, who tend to be repeat customers, linger the longest, spend the most money, and are the most likely to ‘convert’ to buyers, doing so on 3.3 percent of their visits. On average, their visits are worth $5.69 apiece.”

Engine Ready doesn’t appear to divulge even the above information on their website, but if you do find something, please let us know. If you are willing to share the information that is! However they do have some information on pay per click advertising if you dig around, such as Operation Camouflage, The Art of War, and PPC.

The New York Times article is available at nytimes.com/2008/03/10/business/media/10drill.html.