Search Marketing Budgets Continue to Grow

Fifty percent of respondents on the client side said they expect their own company to spend more on paid search this year than last. On average, these respondents foresee their companies' spending on paid search increasing 37 percent this year. As for search-engine optimization (SEO), 52 percent of client respondents expect their companies to boost spending, with expenditures seen rising an average of 43 percent vs. 2009. The report of the findings estimates that revenues for the search-engine-marketing industry as a whole will grow 14 percent this year, to $16.6 billion.