Industry Trends
Search Engine Marketing Trends
Search engine marketing this year is projected to grow by 39% - the fastest growth of any online segment - according to a report from Outsell Inc. The national study also found that Net marketing will rise by 18% this year, compared to a 5.8% growth rate for all U.S. advertising.
Top Search Engines in US
Importance of Search Engine Marketing
- Search engines are the main source in generating traffic to a website. Recent industry survey state that between 78% - 84% of all traffic to a website comes from search engines.
- Over 85% of Internet users make use of search engines to find products and services before they make a buying decision.
- Shoppers rely on Search Engine Results to a greater extent than advertisements on other media, during their decision making process.
- Consumer Research results on reliance in different channels:
Search Engine Results 41% Print Ads 10% TV Ads 9%
- Higher Return on Investment (ROI). Website-based leads are 62% more profitable than other forms of media. Investments in SEO generate higher returns than investments in other media.
- More than 93% of searchers won’t look beyond the results of the first two pages, even though millions of results (relevant websites) are being returned for a single search.
Following are the result of an industry survey
| Position | % of Visitors from total search volume |
| Rank 1 | 100% |
| Rank 2 | 100% |
| Rank 3 | 100% |
| Rank 4 | 85% |
| Rank 5 | 60% |
| Rank 6 | 50% |
| Rank 7 | 50% |
| Rank 8 | 30% |
| Rank 9 | 30% |
| Rank 10 | 20% |
Source: Search Engine Guide
How consumers look at search engine results?
- Consumers view a search result for 1.1 second.
- 98% look at the organic search results.
- 96% look at the top (three) sponsored search results.
- 31% look at the sponsored search results on the right.
- Buyers view more search results (10) and take more time to view the results (11.4 seconds). They also focus on familiar brand names.
- Information searchers view fewer search results (8) and spend less time on each listing (9.4 seconds). They pay more attention to contents than to brand names.
Source: De Vos & Jansen Market Research and Search Engine Mediabureau Checkit