Spend on search engine optimisation (SEO) and paid search marketing will increase even further in the coming year, according to a report published this week.
Research from Econsultancy indicated that 60 per cent of companies plan to increase their spending on SEO over the next year, compared with 55 per cent of companies a year ago. Pay-per-click search marketing spend is also set to rise, with 52 per cent of companies planning to up their budgets, compared with just 45 per cent who said they would be doing the same this time last year.
The report, based on Econsultancy’s survey of 500 client-side agencies and online marketers, also delivered evidence of a marked planned increase in spend on social media, with 65 per cent of companies saying they will spend more, up from just 48 per cent in 2009.
SEO
As expected, Google still dominates for all things SEO. Both SEO and paid search marketing are still targeted towards Google for the majority (83 per cent) of companies, a slight decrease of 2 per cent on last year. Yahoo has dropped from 44 per cent last year to 36 per cent this year, and Bing has seen an increase in companies targeting it for both SEO and paid search marketing, at 34 per cent this year from 30 per cent last year.
Online marketing
While the importance of natural SEO and willingness to spend on this division of online marketing has remained strong through the recession, the increase in social media spend is a relatively new phenomenon, and one that looks set to grow as the web evolves into an increasingly sociable as well as searchable entity. User-generated content in the form of peer recommendations has never been more important, and search marketers are recognising this accordingly and factoring it into their online marketing strategy.
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