The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), has released it's annual industry survey, The State of Search Engine Marketing 2006, whose findings conclude that spending paid placement, paid inclusion, organic search engine optimization (SEO) and other forms of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) hit a record $9.6 Billion in 2006.

SEO remains the most popular form of SEM, although paid placement still gets the lion's share of online marketing budgets, with total spending of $8 billion.

Expect SEO spending to grow as a percentage of marketing budgets, as a growing number of advertisers continue to see the benefits of organic SEO as an important element, maybe the most important element, of their marketing.