My research shows that in recent years, and especially throughout the recent economic crisis there has been a continued growth of interest in the area of Search engine optimisation and there is a lot of money being spent by people trying to drive traffic to their sites. People stick to reliable investments, so gold ahead of hedge funds and SEO over other forms of online marketing. So w hat is it about SEO at the moment and why is it worthwhile?

SEO has the potential for a great return on your initial investment. It costs relatively little in comparison with many other forms of online marketing and while the work needed to bring in well targeted traffic can take time, the work you’ve done will continue to be prosperous long after completion. This helps improve any ROI SEO is responsible for. Most websites can be improved in some way to benefit natural search results and to drive traffic. A well designed website will convert better than a badly designed one, and a well coded website is easier to list and index, SEO goes hand in hand with good design, usability and accessibility and should be given the same weight in decision making in the design and creation of websites. Following good SEO, Usability and Accessibility guidelines will not only drive extra traffic to your site but will improve conversion rates from traffic that comes from other sources than search, hence multiplying the benefits.
Although SEO is rarely a “quick fix”, when used as a long term online marketing solution, properly implemented and tracked, SEO will normally work out cheaper and have more fringe benefit than many other forms of online marketing.

SEO is bound to continue its rapid growth in the coming years as there is a general interest in the subject and companies now have a more restricted marketing budget, instead of a full on redesign of a site a company may opt for an optimisation of current materials. SEO is becoming recognised as a viable and skilled form of marketing especially as there is now less space these days for “black hat” SEO. With companies such as Google working to reduce effectiveness of black hat techniques; link farms are garnering less results, linkbaiting is being reduced and other techniques have been stamped out entirely. There tends to be more people with basic knowledge of SEO too. The increase in average knowledge and greater level of skill in the industry will improve the level of competition.
Search is predicted to grow 17% [NMA 2008] despite the current economic downturn and with it believed that 80 percent of all Web site visitors reach any given site through a search engine SEO is a profitable and viable form of marketing.
It is with the above reasons in mind that I believe we need to offer some form of SEO service to our current and future clients. It is a “buzzword” that more and more people now know and one that will be more influential in the process of choosing a developer.

Eddie