Average UK SEO Budget Increases In 2010

A recent report released by the highly respected Econsultancy reveals that in 2010 the number of companies spending in excess of £50k per annum on SEO has risen to 22%.

However, despite ranking exceptionally well for several highly competitive nationally targetted “SEO niche” keywords, (SEO Services and SEO Packages to name but a few), the data exposed by Econsultancy does not match the demographics of our current client base, infact its not even close.

We decided it was in our best interests to to carry out some research of our own by conducting a customer survey on the landing page of our website. The findings revealed that 75% of visitors had a budget of under £1k per annum, with the remaining 25% having a budget of upto £10k per annum.

According to the data we collated, none of our potential clients had a budget which fell inside the “up to 25k” or the “upto 40k” brackets, let alone the “50k+” category. Does this mean that an SEO companies own rankings are not important to big businesses in the UK?

Are all large UK SEO contracts going to a select few companies? (Surely not, in a free and democratic society like ours !) I decided to put the question to Econsultancy themselves in the below email.

Dear Econsultancy,
Having read the Econsultancy blog post by Graham Charlton entitled “Search market report reveals increase in PPC and SEO spending” I noticed that your research indicates that 22% of UK companies have an annual SEO budget of over £50k.

Having carried out my own research into the SEO budgets of visitors to our website, I notice that there is a massive discrepancy between the data you collated, and my own findings.

In fact, the poll carried out on my website indicates that 0% of UK companies have a 50k+ budget with just 25% having a budget of up to 10k per annum, and the remaining 75% stating a sub 1k annual SEO budget. (a demographic that is more in line with our own current clientbase)

Whilst I have the upmost respect for both your company and the tenacious methods in which you collate your data, This vast difference in client budget demographics between your findings and my own are somewhat puzzling, especially given that our website ranks on the first page of google for several nationally targetted, and highly competitive SEO niche keywords.

This is a subject that it is obviously of great interest to myself and many other SEO consultants across the UK, and as such the body of this email along with my own findings have been included in a blog post which can be found on the following URL: http://tinyurl.com/3y2vzhd

I was therefore wondering If you could offer any answers to the following:

• How this large varience in data has come about.
• Does your report have any data on the distribution of +50k clients
  between the various UK SEO companies?
• Do you collate any data regarding how SEO clients go about selecting their SEO, and any trend variences in these methods across the varied annual budget brackets?

I would like to thank you in advance for taking the time to respond.

Best regards,
Nick Davison.

Graham Charlton, of Econsultancy provided the following response to my questions:

Hi Nick,

I’ve answered your questions below, hope this helps.

* How this large varience in data has come about.

We can’t speak for your research at all. The Search Marketing
Benchmarking Report (which has a methodology section) is based on a
survey of our user base. 600 client side marketers and company
respondents were surveyed.

It’s possible that this leans towards larger companies. For example,
more than half of the company respondents were from firms with an
annual turnover of £10m or more. I’d recommend downloading the report
the blog post refers to to gain more understanding.

http://econsultancy.com/uk/reports/uk-search-engine-marketing-benchmark-report

* Does your report have any data on the distribution of +50k
clients between the various UK SEO companies?

No, unfortunately not.

* Do you collate any data regarding how SEO clients go about
selecting their SEO, and any trend variences in these methods across
the varied annual budget brackets?

No, though we have related reports including a Search Marketing
Buyer’s Guide, template files etc.

Regards

Graham Charlton UK Editor

Graham’s response does provide some enlightening information regarding the large discrepancy between the information gathered by High Impact SEO and Econsultancy.

The fact that more than half of the marketers surveyed by Econsultancy had an annual turnover of 10m or more indicates that the examined cross section of SEO Companies were not targeted on a basis intended to provide an unbiased representation of the industry as a whole, but rather to represent a cross section of their own userbase. This is not intended as a dig at Econsultancy, on the contrary, it is understandable that the data they release should be targeted towards those it is intended for, this is good marketing.

However, I cant help feeling the vast varience in annual SEO budgets between Google organic search traffic and Econsultancy’s user base is worthy of more investigation, especially because there seems to be a clear cut off point of 10k per annum in SEO niche organic search traffic.

With this in mind I intent to carry out research of my own to answer the following:

• What is the distribution of +50k clients between the various UK SEO companies?

• What trend variences exist in the methods of finding an SEO company across the varied annual budget brackets?

Watch this space!