The economic downturn has affected all of us big or small. Businesses have drastically cut down on their budgets and marketing budget have taken the axe in most cases. However, fortunately what we have observed is that this recession has not really dampened the SEO business and speaking to a few of my other industry acquaintances confirms the same. So, is SEO recession proof ? Why is it not affected ?

There are actually multiple reasons for this as I can think of..

a) Effectiveness : When various sales channel are measured, web always gives any of the two results - a slaes channel with high ROI or a sales channel with huge growth potential. Now who would ignore such a channel when you want to make every penny count ?

b) Easy to Measure: Unlike offline channel, web gives you exact measures of what you have earned and what you have spent. Its much easier to keep track and know where your money is going. Many companies are een moving budgets from offline media to online media.

c) Time for Thinking - If you are an established business you are most likely using this  slow down to do an audit of your existing activities and see where you can improve. Given the high rate of broadband adoption and Internet access you would most likely put revamping your website and SEO on top priority, so you are ready for the market when it starts getting bullish.

d) Search Traffic Doesn't Reduce - Yes, economic slowdown might stop people from making purchases but it has definitely stopped people from browsing the web, rather it has increased with the increasing adoption of broadband and deeper penetration of Internet access. So being present on SERP , necessarily means that you are able to reach more prospective consumers. The conversion rate may be low but more people visiting your website would mean the absolute number of conversion would likely remain the same or increase.

e) Paid Search to SEO - many companies who have been using Paid search on a regular basis might be considering the option due to its high spending nature and definitely most of them also know that the major share of traffic actually lies with the organic results. Many of them would probably consider SEO as a low spending option to capture that Free traffic.

f) SEO Now a more acceptible Practice - With Google releasing a formal SEO guide, people & businesses now realise that SEO is not BS and search engines don't hate SEO. SEO is becoming a more acceptible practice with the major search engines supporting the move and also the major brnads in traditional media conducting inerviews and discussions on SEO.