In my opinion SEO sets the quality standards in Internet marketing! Imagine if it was a free for all and any one from wherever can put their junk on the 1st page of Google, how much value do you think search results will have?
Think about it why do you use online search? To find an answer or solution to a specific problem that you have, of course! Now imagine doing this search and not finding any information relevant to your problem, how will that make you feel? Pretty irritated I can imagine.
Now this is Googles dilemma. Satisfying their searchers needs with so much valuable information, so that they will return over and over, this makes Google happy and it makes their clients happy and it will also make the websites chosen happy.
This is why SEO is important to you! SEO presents your website in the best possible light to the Google search bots. SEO is the format used to present your website as valuable to Google.
For too long the average man in the street has been fooled into thinking that a pretty website is what people want. Yes branding is important but in the long run valuable content and correct SEO is what builds success online.
According to statistics organic search results on the front page of Google gets as much as 8 times more traffic than the paid listings (the adverts at the top and on the right of the page, PPC).
Googles main goal is to satisfy theirs clients the searchers query with valuable content first and foremost, couple this with what people are actually searching for online and a website search engine optimized with pages and pages of valuable information and you have a winning formula that will rise to the top in your chosen market and give you exposure like no other media can.
This is why SEO is important in Internet Marketing.