The economic downturn is likely to continue to hurt businesses across every sector for some time to come, but investing in resources today to help marketers better understand how website and search optimization is evolving will pay big dividends in the near future.

This is particularly true as companies are placing a greater emphasis on customer acquisition - a goal that is best reached using search as the primary tool. Overall, U.S. spending on search engine marketing (SEO) is expected to have doubled from $12.2 billion in 2008 to $23.4 billion in 2013, according to a report from eMarketer.

That's why events like last week's Search Engine Expo (SMX) East in new York City are so valuable for anyone trying to optimize online business efforts. After all, what good is knowing about Google's Web Crawl without understanding its relationship to SE