Across the top four search engines -- Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL -- which hold over 90% of the market share, more than 60% of users chose a natural search result over a paid search advertisement as most relevant to a sample query.

"This illustrates that even though online marketers focus the majority of their energy and budget on paid search advertising, natural search results are at least equally if not more important to reaching their entire searching audience," said Fredrick Marckini, CEO of iProspect. "Marketers who are not investing in natural search engine optimization and paid inclusion programs such as Yahoo!’s Site Match Xchange program are missing a large percentage of potential traffic. However, the same is true for the reverse; marketers who are only investing in natural optimization and paid inclusion miss nearly 40% of search engine users. The clear finding here is that smart marketers must invest in both," Marckini added.

Search engine marketing firms that offer both natural search engine optimization and management of paid search advertising campaigns can ensure their clients' Web pages are consistently found prominently in both types of results in all major search engines, which will lead to the most significant return on investment.

During the survey, respondents were first asked if they use one search engine more than any other. Those who answered yes were asked which search engine they use most often. Those answering Google, Yahoo!, MSN or AOL were provided with a sample search result screen from their preferred search engine, displaying the results of a search for "used cars" and were asked to click on the result, on that page, which they found to be most relevant had they been in the market for a used car.

According to iProspect Director of Business Analytics, Dr. Naga Krothapalli, "This methodology ensured that these users were allowed to select a search result from the search engine with which they were most familiar. It ensured the greatest degree of accuracy by guaranteeing that a Yahoo! user was not asked to select a search result from AOL search results or a Google user was not asked to select a search result from an MSN search. In theory, each searcher who indicated a ‘preferred’ search engine, would be familiar with the layout of the search results from their engine of choice."

http://www.iprospect.com/media/newsletter_june_molina.htm