SEO and Email Marketing to get biggest online investment

I don't work for eMarketer, but I find a lot of value in their daily emails.  Because Compendium Blogware tries to get companies focused on Blogging as a tool for SEO, I find these studies to be really important in helping in our ongoing education.  


What this is obviously showing is that marketers are increasing their online marketing investment where they can show the greatest return.  My favorite quote:

“Search marketing is the best customer acquisition tool in the online space,” said eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman.

“SEO improves organic listings, which Internet users prefer over paid search, and it is cost-effective,” said Mr. Hallerman. “Furthermore, optimization works across all search engines, and an optimized site does not drop off the first results page even when marketer spending slows or stops—as it can with paid search.”

This is the key value proposition behind business blogging.  Sure you will get some people who will comment and some will subscribe, but the biggest value of your corporate blogging strategy has got to be focused on leveraging your stories for increased SEO.   SEO is how you build new relationships...email is how you keep them. 

Is Blogging for Rankings somehow wrong?  Of course not.  This is where you tell your stories, show how you help customers solve the same problems that the searchers are looking to solve.  This is where we see not only great search traffic, but significant conversions.   People want help...that's why they are searching.   Your blogs should be exactly what they are looking for.