As more companies look for inexpensive ways to provide return on investment, one firm which assists Americans in finding a home or apartment is ramping up its search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

According to PRIMEDIA , which helps people with living arrangements though its print publications and websites like ApartmentGuide.com, Rentals.com and NewHomeGuide.com, the company intends to further increase traffic and expand its revenue using search engine optimization (SEO) throughout 2009.

Charles Stubbs, president and CEO of PRIMEDIA, said the company intends to use search engine optimization to increase market share and customer count for the largest part of its business – Apartment Guide and ApartmentGuide.com.

"We also aim to aggressively grow our Rentals.com business by focusing on driving revenue growth and improving site engineering and performance, while increasing traffic primarily through search engine optimization," said Stubbs.

An outlook report this week from online marketing agency Razorfish predicts that 2009 will be the first year the budgets for paid search decrease, anticipating the drop to be as high as 10 percent. Conversely, the report expects many companies to shift their online marketing efforts to search engine optimization (SEO).

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.