The session this morning is kinda bare, and the room is still very cold. But the topic is close to my heart. Since I work in a financial industry, the recession has hit my business very hard. I don’t have multiple clients so I can’t compare like others and these guys are really focusing on agency side. I’ll explain more later.

This recession is here. I don’t know via US numbers overall, but in the workplace it’s definitely there. In Austin we have seen multiple large employers do massive layoffs. You don’t really feel it until you or a loved one loses their job.

As a search marketer, I know that search marketing doesn’t get hit as hard, and may actually grow some, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t impact us. I think we have had to tighten down in making sure that we are using the extra money we are given. The C-levels are moving money our direction and we have to do better at making that money count. So I think this recession has helped Search Engine Marketing, but increased our workload at the same time.

Now one of the questions they are asked is in this environment where do you put your first dollar? Most of the panel speakers are talking to agency people. “Spend your first dollar getting to know the client” For those of us in house, we know our company, and at an advanced conference we’ve done the SEO basics by now. I think it varies depending on the industry, but in this market you can’t wait 3 months for SEO changes to really take effect. Any new campaign is going to need paid to hold it up while the “SEO Basics” get going. But that’s just me.