Product names and category listings are just not sufficient for natural search, so writing articles, which speaks about your industry or issues du jour could pay for itself many times over through better placement. Blogs are a effecitive way to do that, but even better are "how-to" or primer articles and journals that discuss the most excellent way to use a product or service.

Sites such as Ask.com and Wikipedia are ruling today on search results as they have exhaustive archives on just about every topic. Putting your skills about the newest in fashion, technology, or whatever you offer (and hiring an editor) into words could be much more economical than Search engine marketing, and it has staying power since an optimized site moves on to offer benefits into the future.