Companies around the globe are turning to investing in search marketing on the Internet, as both paid and natural search channels continue to deliver.
A report led by Guava and Econsultancy found that around 55 per cent of companies have increased their budgets to invest in to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO or natural search) in a bid to attract people to their website and increase business.
The research also found that 45 per cent of responding organisations were to increase their budgets for paid search.
The report is the third annual UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report, and is based on more than 800 company and agency digital marketers. The reports gives a comprehensive overview of the search marketing landscape, and also includes reasearch about the use of social media.
Linus Gregoriadis, Econsultancy’s reseach director, said, “UK search marketers are still getting strong return on investment from paid search marketing despite the recession, increased competition and click cost inflation.
“This research provides more proof that companies are turning to digital channels such as paid seach and search engine optimisation where there is a demonstrable return on investment.”
A large proportion of company respondants said that they are tracking paid search return on investment effectively has increased from 33 per cent last year to 45 per cent in 2009. For SEO there has been an even bigger increase from 20 to 35 per cent.
