MarketingSherpa’s 2005-2006 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide offers some important insights for anyone involved in SEO on what to expect in the year to come.

Three key trends emerge:

• Trend #1 sees Search Engines as TV Networks Jockeying for Audience.”Using engines is the third most popular activity online, just behind using email and surfing. However despite the fact that more than 127 million Americans routinely use search engines, the overwhelming majority of search activity occurs on just a handful of search engines.”

  MarketingSherpa’s latest stats reveal Google’s share at 36.5%, up from 36% last year. Yahoo! holds 30.5%, up from 30% in 2004, while MSN dropped from 16% to 15.5%, and AOL from 13% to 9.9%. Ask Jeeves has risen from 2% to 6.1%.

• Trend #2 indicates SEO is still a tiny portion of total search marketing spend. A May 2005 study revealed just 13% of the Fortune 100 had “effective SEO”. When asked why more marketers don’t invest in SEO, 28% said they “don’t understand SEO, overall complexity”.
• Search Marketing is a new application for Press Releases (Trend #3), with SEO firms, PR firms and marketers now seizing on optimized search marketing as a low cost but very effective tactic.

Download the Executive Summary from MarketingSherpa.com here. Buy the full report here.