According to Gord Hotchkiss, president of search engine company Enquiro and MediaPost regular columnist, companies that are using search engine optimization (SEO) to increase their online reach and markets tend to have better balance sheets.

He says there are a variety of reasons these companies are doing search engine optimization (SEO) better than their competitors including management who simply “get it” and can communicate this to the right team members within the firm.

Hotchkiss believes companies that are successful in search engine optimization (SEO) are those who aware of their role in the business community and are always improvng their marketing operations.

“I’m guessing that if you asked any SEO consultant in the world, they’ll tell you their favorite clients are the ones that are the easiest to work with: clients who listen, are proactive and for whom continual improvement is a religion,” he said. “Based on what I’ve seen in the past decade, this attitude extends beyond the SEO team (indeed, it has to) and permeates the entire culture.”

He went on to note “Flatter and more-responsive organizations. Working on SEO is like taking your Web site to the doctor: a good SEO consultant will tell you what you have to do, but the hard work is up to you. Companies that listen and respond will do better than companies that justify, finger-point and go on the defensive. Healthy companies look for ways to improve; dysfunctional companies offer reasons why improvement is impossible. Companies that refuse to do the heavy lifting required to whip their site into shape generally are equally negligent in other areas of their business. ”

Search engine optimization (SEO) and the total search engine marketing (SEM) space is annticipated to grow considerably over the coming 3-4 years. According Forrester over 15 billion will be spent on search engine marketing by the end of this 2009 expecting to double by 2014.  Read full story here at MediaPost