Marketers need to ensure they are getting the most out of their search engine optimisation (SEO) practices particularly during a recession, it has been claimed.

Director of search at Faction Media Stephen Riegel wrote on a BtoB blog that more and more internet marketers are turning to the accountability and reliability found in SEO now that budgets are tighter during the current financial downturn.

He claimed it is therefore now more important than ever to employ SEO, saying: "Every search matters and an optimised search marketing effort can yield more value to an organisation."

Mr Riegel advised that the best way for marketers to maximise their SEO efforts then is to ensure they have certain standards put in place, such as the elimination of navigation barriers, the creation of XML sitemaps and understandable code.

Keywords, he added, are still of the utmost importance and marketers should therefore hone in on the needs of their audience.

It has recently been claimed that developers of a website striving for high SEO rankings should build their own links rather than use paid links.

Writing on the official Econsultancy blog, Patricio Robles commented that using the latter is a "risky" business.