Small businesses in the UK and US increased their spending on online marketing in the second quarter of 2010, according to a new report.

Figures from WebVisible show that US expenditure in particular shot up by 159 per cent compared with the same period last year.

In the UK, Yahoo! saw the biggest increase in web marketing spending by small firms, while both Bing and Google registered declines.

The cost-per-click (CPC) metric rose by 5.4 per cent on Google and 3.7 per cent on Bing, while click-through rates increased for the former and dropped for the latter.

On average, UK CPCs represented one-sixth of the equivalent US figure during the second quarter.

"Over the past year, conversion activity increased on almost all website actions - filling out an online form, watching a video, bookmarking a page or printing driving directions," noted WebVisible chief executive Kirsten Mangers.

Last month, research by Econsultancy and Guava found that six in ten UK firms are looking to increase spending on search engine optimisation over the next year, with 52 per cent set to invest more in paid search.

Source: DirectNews