You may have noticed that, while Britain’s investment bankers may be facing a lean Christmas, SEOptimise has expanded its team. This is because, despite the credit squeeze, the search sector is growing rapidly.

Recession, it seems, happens to other industries – the rise in search marketing budgets is so inevitable that even with a slow or fall in economic growth, the sector continues to expand.

I am not even offering you anecdotal evidence. Research published by Jeffries and Company warns tough economic times are causing marketers to reconsider their online marketing budgets.

However, it suggests marketers are not looking to reduce their budgets but to ensure their money works as hard as possible.

“More and more advertisers are allocating a greater level of their budgets to more performance-oriented channels, particularly search, and away from brand building formats such as display and sponsorships,” the report states.

As budgets falter, many marketers are under pressure to justify both their spending and their jobs to employers, and a search marketing campaign could be the way to do that.

Jeffries argues search works because it is performance-based, offers clear returns and those returns are excellent.

In a difficult economic period, companies cannot simply bury their heads and wait for it all to go away, there has to be some marketing activity to keep them in the minds of their customers.

With effective search marketing, a firm can carefully control the amount it spends and generate business despite the slump.