The recession has caused many companies to cut back on traditional marketing campaigns, but if new research from the UK is any indication, the search engine optimization (SEO) market will continue to grow here in the U.S.

A study released today from UK firm Edit Optimization finds that the demand for search engine optimization has increased 83 percent in the last two years.

According to the figures from the company, there were about 18,000 searches for search engine optimization (SEO) companies in May of 2007 – a number that increased to more than 33,000 by May of this year.

The recent surge in the overall search engine marketing (SEM) industry appears to show no signs of dying off anytime soon with a recent survey from [x+1] finding that 65.4 percent of respondents say they intend to increase or maintain their SEM spending this year when compared to 2008 figures.

Of the companies that intend to increase spending, 13.1 percent said their SEM spend would rise by 20 percent or more.

This matches a number of other reports in the past year signaling that search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) will increase in the foreseeable future. In a report this month from Borrell Associates, the company predicted that the amount spent on SEM will increase from $37 billion last year to $40.3 billion by 2013.

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.