Online marketers have released the SEO agencies buyers’ guide on March 10 which shows that British businesses now spend over £500m on search engine optimization (SEO), according to a report by eConsultancy. These figures indicate that there was an 18% increased spend on website optimisation in 2011 compared to 2010.

The agency calculated this figure by looking at the payments to media and SEO agencies, SEO specialists and in-house staff costs. The senior research analyst for econsultancy Jake Hird said “It’s great to see that natural search has developed into a half-billion pound industry in the UK.”

This SEO buyers guide is aimed at companies looking to hire an SEO company or SEO agency, with a breakdown of the UK’s most successful online marketing firms. The collected papers also add that the year-end value of SEO in the UK was around £514 million – up from £436 million in 2010. Our SEO Specialists believe investments in both SEO and social media will increase considerably in 2012 compared to 2011.

What do you think will happen 2012? Are we going to see increased SEO spending among UK businesses or will the money go elsewhere?