* Marketers who hire an out-of-house organic search/SEO expert report a 110% jump in site traffic, vs. 38% for those who do SEO in-house. And yet, only 26% of marketers have outsourced organic search to an expert firm. (Marketing Sherpa Guide to SEO 2007)
* SEO is still a small percentage of search dollars spent (10.5%) compared to pay-per-click advertising (87.4%). Organic search/SEO spend in North America for 2007 was $1.279 billion--but it’s becoming more important than ever:
* 9 out of ten advertisers now use SEO
* 56% say they expect to spend more on SEO in 2008 over 2007. (SEMPO’s State of Search Marketing 2007)
* SEO will ‘see a huge kick in the pants’ in 2008, with 35% of ‘average spend’ marketers and 43% of ‘big spend’ marketers increasing their organic search budgets by 11% or more. (Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Benchmarking Guide 2008)
* Organic search/SEO was ranked as one of the top two marketing tactics for strongest ROI, along with email marketing—outpacing paid search, and significantly out performing direct mail, online advertising and print advertising. (Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Benchmarking Guide 2008)
* ‘Among marketers, SEO is the most popular form of search marketing.’ (Ad Age Search Marketing Fact Pack 2007)
* Among companies who rely on lead generation, search engine optimization was ranked as the #1 tactic for ROI—ahead of paid search, Internet advertising, email, etc.) . |