Marketing Research Chart: SEO budgets for 2012

SUMMARY: Who doesn’t like to get the biggest bang for the buck? We wanted to learn more about how organizations allocate budgets to maximize high-quality leads. Find out the results from a survey of more than 1,500 marketers in this week’s chart.

by Kaci Bower, Research Analyst

Future investments in SEO backed by having SEO process in place

Q. How much do you expect your organization's SEO budget to
change in the next 12 months?

Click here to see a larger, printable version of this chart

Organizations that are relatively immature with their SEO processes are still investing money into SEO. The overwhelming majority of these organizations spend their SEO budgets on staff salaries, whereas Transition and Strategic organizations tend to divide their budgets across staff salaries, outsourced agency services, and for-fee SEO marketing and analytics tools.

Strategically oriented organizations expect to increase SEO budgets to a greater degree than organizations in other SEO phases. Although budget increases are in sight for many, a greater percentage of organizations in the Trial and Transition phases expect to keep SEO budgets the same.

One interesting item to note is how 5% of Strategic organizations expect to decrease SEO budgets by up to 20%. Across-the-board budget cuts may be an explanation for this, but these organizations also may have developed their SEO programs to a point where they can maintain and sustain quality results at a reduced cost.

For additional research data and insights about search engine optimization, download and read the free Executive Summary from the MarketingSherpa 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report. And also be sure to subscribe to the complimentary Marketing Research Chart of the Week newsletter.

Useful links related to this chart

Members Library -- SEO: Content-heavy pages can bring search traffic ... and search penalties?

Members Library -- Marketing Research Chart: Top SEO objectives

Webinar Replay -- The Cumulative Effect of SEO Improvements: How a methodical process for SEO pays off in markedly better results

MarketingSherpa 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report

Marketing Research Chart: SEO budgets for 2012

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