Depending on the nature of the website and its marketing objectives, search engines can be the most important source of website traffic. While some sites can ignore search engines - for example, a website that caters to a known set of dealers - most sites will depend at least partly on search engines to send new and returning visitors.

One advantage of search engine marketing is low cost. Compared to banner marketing, which has a cost calculated by exposure or by click-through, with few exceptions search engine traffic is free, and the users reached are often NEW customers. While cost may be incurred in the initial engine positioning and optimization effort, the ongoing cost of maintenance can be quite minimal for the volume of traffic generated.

A term now entering the public relations lexicon is press release optimization. The concept of "optimizing" a press release once meant creating an intriguing headline and including some novel catch phrases in a paper document - ideally, a reporter would be interested enough to read the release, and might even use some information from it. Now, optimizing a press release has taken on a technical dimension as well.

Today's reporters and feature writers are no longer passively waiting for fat packets of press releases, backgrounders, and photos to show up in their mailbox.

Dooley Direct's success in the web visibility area has been its ability to integrate marketing skills with state-of-the-art technology. Now, DD brings the same combination to a new promotional technique: The Ultimate Press Release.  Simply put, DD's new promotion technique is to electronically distribute a press release that has been optimized to improve visibility both to the news media as well as to individuals via news feeds, news searches, and conventional search engines. (See also press release optimization.)