On February 2005 Zdnet (Cnet) France and Imitiki organized a search engine marketing survey. This survey was targeted to Zdnet France, Abondance, Web Rank Info and Agent Web Ranking readers (mainly people that play any role in promoting their websites in search engines).

540 people have completed this brief survey.

Zdnet and ImiTiki have just posted the results of this survey. As this survey is in French I have decided to translate it in English

SEO results:

1) Is Search engine optimization important for you?

• Yes: 94.7%
• No: 5.3%

2) Is your site optimized for search engines?

• Yes: 77.3%
• No but I plan to do it: 16%
• No because it is useless: 6.7%

3) When do you plan to optimize it?

• Within the next 3 months: 72.6%
• Within the next 6 months: 11.3%
• Before the end of the year: 10.5%
• Next year: 5.6%

4) Are you satisfied by your search engine ranking

• Very satisfied: 12%
• Satisfied: 33.5%
• Moderately satified: 40.2%
• Unsatisfied: 11.8%
• Very unsatisfied: 2.6%

5) SEO is made internally or externally?

• Internally: 81.3%
• Externally: 18.7%

6) How much time do you spend on SEO?

• 1 day per month: 49.1 %
• 2 days or more per month: 42.1 %
• 1 people full time per month: 7.2 %
• 2 people or more full time per month: 1.6 %

7) What is your annual budget for SEO:

• Time: 63.2%
• Less than 500 euros:10.2 %
• 500 to 1 000 euros: 9.0 %
• 1 000 to 2 000 euros: 5.9 %
• 2 000 to 5 000 euros: 4.1 %
• 5 000 to 10 000 euros: 1.8 %
• 10 000 to 20 000 euros: 2.8 %
• 20 000 to 30 000 euros: 2.3 %
• More than 30 000 euros: 0.8 %

8) How to you control your SEO effectiveness?

• Control your SEO ranking on search engines: 54%
• Analyze your search engines referers: 35%
• Analyze business generated by search engines (ROI): 11.1%

9) Do you control your search engine rankings?

• Yes with a software: 20.5%
• Yes with an online tool: 25.3%
• No but my SEO expert produces ranking reports: 15.3%
• No: 38.9%

10) Do you use a tool to control your website traffic?

• Yes: 72.6%
• No: 27.4%

Sponsored links results:

11: Do you use sponsored link for your search?

• Yes, in priority: 2.5%
• Yes sometimes: 26,2%
• Rarely: 41,9%
• Never: 29,4%

12: Do you think the difference between search engine results and sponsored links is enough explicit?

• Yes: 37,2%
• No: 18%
• It depends on the search engine: 44.9%

13. What do you think about sponsored links results relevance?

• Very Good: 3%
• Good: 42.1%
• Moderately satified: 42.1%
• Not good: 12.7%

14. Do you plan to buy sponsored links?

• Yes: 23.7%
• Not now but I plan to do it: 23.7%
• No because I do not need it: 52.6%

15. Why do you use sponsored links?

• To get more visitors to your site: 60.5%
• It is one way to reach your goals (sales, traffic, contact): 55.8%
• It is your main way to reach your goals (sales, traffic, contact): 13.2%
• It is an alternative to other ads: 49.5%
• Other: 3.7%

16. What PPC do you mainly use:

• Google: 82.6%
• Overture: 11.2%
• Espotting: 4.9%
• Mirago: 4.5%
• Other:18.8%

17. What is your yearly PPC budget?

• 0 euro: 28.4 %
• Less than 500 euros: 25.3 %
• 500 to 1 000 euros: 14.7 %
• 1 000 to 2 000 euros: 8.9 %
• 2 000 to 5 000 euros: 15,8 %
• 5 000 to 10 000 euros: 6.8 %
• 10 000 to 20 000 euros: 3.2 %
• 20 000 to 30 000 euros: 2.6 %
• More than 30 000 euros: 4.2 %

Even if 94.7% of French companies (small, medium and large) understand the importance of Search engine marketing, the amount they invest on SEO and Sponsored links are very low!

If you know similar surveys in the US, Europe or anywhere in the world do not hesitate to post it, it will be interesting to compare it.

Comments about this survey:

• Emmanuel Parody (Director of Content and Production CNET Networks France) on his blog
• Olivier Andrieu from abondance.com

About Imitiki: Imitiki is owned by Olivier Andrieu from Abondance and Agent Web Ranking. Imitiki organizes SEO seminars and events in France.

(Press Release)

VNU to Show Relevant Google AdWords Ads across Network of Business Publications

NEW YORK & MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – February 15, 2005 – VNU, a leading global information and media company, and Google Inc. today announced the availability of Google AdWords advertisements on the websites of all of VNU U.S. and European business-to-business publications. The deal is VNU’s first major joint US-European web partnership, featuring U.S. brands such as Adweek, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, National Jeweler, Progressive Grocer, and Successful Meetings and leading European titles like Computing, Accountancy Age, Computable, IT Week. As part of the agreement, Google's targeted, text-based ads will appear on VNU’s global network of professional websites through the Google AdSense program.

"Google’s huge collection of advertisers offers the depth necessary to provide relevant ads that match the industry-specific content of VNU’s titles," said Mike Marchesano, President and CEO of Business Media U.S. and Ruud Bakker, President and CEO of Business Media Europe in a joint statement. They added, "It is a benefit to our business readers to receive additional information pertinent to what they are reading."

VNU’s business-to-business titles in the entertainment, media & marketing, technology and finance, retail, travel, performance, real estate and design, and food service and beverage industries now show Google’s targeted ads throughout their respective websites. The revenue from clicks on these ads is shared between VNU and Google.

"VNU’s quality business content provides another excellent distribution channel for our business-to-business advertisers," said Joan Braddi, vice president of Search Services. “Google continues to collaborate and innovate to bring business-to-business users, publishers and advertisers together.”

Google has just released a new version of its toolbar: version 3.0.119.6. It is available .

Here are the 3 new features:

• AutoLink : One click on this button turns street addresses into links to online maps (only addresses in the US), using Google Maps. AutoLink can also link package tracking numbers to delivery status, VIN numbers (US) to vehicle history, and publication ISBN numbers to Amazon.com listings.
• WordTranslator : Just hover your mouse cursor over an English word and Toolbar's WordTranslator will tell you what it means in your own language. WordTranslator currently supports translation from English into Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, German and Spanish.
• SpellCheck : Google Toolbar's new SpellCheck button finds any spelling mistakes whenever you type into a web form, including web-based email, discussion forums, and even intranet web applications. The AutoFix option even corrects all of your text with a single click.

The toolbar's design has been slightly enhanced.

BUT... There is still something that Google still hasn't done: a Firefox version! I hope that the recent Yahoo! toolbar for Firefox will make Google develop a Google toolbar for Firefox.

Large blog coverage:

• SEO News
• WebmasterWorld
• SEOBook
• SEW Blog
• Search Engine Roundtable
• John Batelle
• Jeroenr's Repository
• Google Blogoscoped

French discussion: Google toolbar version 3.