SEO 'endured the recession well'

13:30 7th June 2010

The recent recession was endured better by search engine optimisation (SEO) than many other marketing tactics, according to ecommerce and digital marketing community Econsultancy.

Stefan Tornquist, research director at Econsultancy, explained that money put towards SEO represents half of all the money spent online.

He was speaking after research by Econsultancy found that the majority of companies are currently planning to increase their SEO budgets.

Mr Tornquist said: "Looked at in comparison with other digital channels, the percentages of growth in 2010 might be higher, but we should also consider that most of those channels dropped more than search during the economic downturn."

Only four per cent of those surveyed stated that they are going to decrease their spending on SEO as part of their digital marketing budget.

Earlier this year, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation (SEMPO) predicted that there will be growth of around 14 per cent in the search engine marketing industry in North America during 2010.

Mr Tornquist stated that he expects growth to be around the same across Europe throughout the year.

SEMPO added that the biggest challenge facing digital marketers who carry out SEO campaigns for their clients will be to measure the return on investment accurately.