Search 'biggest marketing development of decade'

Search through portals such as Google and Yahoo! is believed by senior technology executives to be the most important marketing development of the last decade, a new report has revealed.

Global PR firm Eurocom Worldwide, in association with agency Six Degrees, questioned 350 such individuals at a recent conference and found that four out of five spoke about the importance of search engines.

Furthermore, three in five predicted their firms will increase spending on advertising through the web in 2008, with online marketing considered to offer the best value for money by 43 per cent of the respondents.

Jennifer Janson, spokeswoman for Six Degrees, highlighted the growing importance of blogging as an online marketing tool.

"Corporate blogging requires dedicating time and resource ... However, its value in terms of search engine optimisation and interaction with the public is potentially enormous," she explained.

The importance of web marketing could become even more pronounced in the near future, as recent research conducted by Forrester predicted that 71 per cent of European households will have broadband access by 2013.