Research Text:

The 55-page report, covering both Search Engine Optimisation and Paid Search, is based on an online survey of more than 1,000 respondents in February and March 2008. The research follows on from a similar study in 2007, enabling year-on-year comparisons around what is happening in the fast-evolving search marketplace from the perspective of both client-side advertisers and agencies. The report findings are divided into the following sections:

-) Type of Search Activity and Search Services

-) Search Budgets

-) Objectives and Effectiveness
-) Search Engines
-) Search Problems and Issues. Highlights include:   -) Since 2007, the proportion of companies conducting paid search and SEO exclusively in-house has declined. Correspondingly, the proportion of companies using an agency for both disciplines has gone up.
-) There has been a significant increase in the proportion of companies calling upon agencies to help them with landing page development.
-) 9% of companies surveyed are spending more than £1 million annually on paid search. One in six companies surveyed is spending at least £50,000 annually on SEO every year.
-) Some 86% of responding organisations are paying to appear on Google's sponsored listings. The proportion of advertisers using Yahoo!'s platform has climbed from 45% to 49%.
-) Since 2007, there has been a big drop in the proportion of respondents citing lack of internal resource as a major barrier.
Download a copy of the report (below) to learn more.