Internet users tend to prefer organic search results over pay-per-click (PPC) ads - meaning that businesses should concentrate on search engine optimisation (SEO).

This is the suggestion of David Hallerman of eMarketer, who noted that recent figures from the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation showed that PPC accounted for 88 per cent of North American search spending last year, while SEO saw 11 per cent.

However, he said that these figures will change in future to be more in favour of SEO as marketers realise that consumers prefer to click on organic listings rather than PPC ads - which means that natural search results get more click-throughs than sponsored ones.

"Marketers are realising that even if optimisation's effects are not as obvious as paid search advertising, SEO delivers longer-term results that support any search marketing campaign," Mr Hallerman went on to state.

A report released by eMarketer last month suggested that SEO can be more cost-effective than PPC as, while it is a long-term strategy, SEO is less likely to result in websites dropping off the first page of search results when spending stops, as is the case with PPC.