Marketers Spend Little On Search Engines

Posted Friday, October 17, 2003

Most online marketers continue to spend very little on search engine optimization, according to CyberAtlas Research.

Almost 46 percent of the marketers polled said they spend less than 0.5 percent of their annual budgets on search engine optimization. Only 10 percent spend over 25 percent of their budget on making sure their sites performed well on search engines.

This is despite the fact that 24 percent of those surveyed said over three-quarters of their traffic came from search engine referrals.

About 85 percent of those polled said they monitor their site's placements on search engines once a month or more often.

Almost 65 percent work on search engine optimization monthly, and 13 percent do so weekly. Eighty percent of optimization is carried out in-house, and 13 percent is outsourced.
Over 30 percent of those taking part in the survey have used paid keyword programs at Yahoo, http//GoTo.com, or LookSmart.