There are two basic ways to attract customers

The first is Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.

PPC programs work very well, but are extremely expensive (you can expect to pay between $.10 and $2.00 per click per term) and many times lead to big bills without corresponding sales.

The second is organic (non-paid) listings.

Organic listings allow you achieve high listings in the search engines without paying a cent. In addition to the obvious benefit of not costing anything, organic listings are more trusted by browsers and shoppers than the paid listings, so you’re probably going to get more qualified traffic in general with good SEO placement. Remember, the idea is to get the most qualified customer to your site for the lowest cost. That is the true benefit of SEO work.