WebVisible: Small business search spend up 91% YoY

The average spend by small businesses on search in the third quarter of this year was $1,658, up 91% year-on-year and 93% on the previous quarter. Most small businesses (33%) spent between $1,000 and $1,999 and 15% spent between $2,000 and $2,999.

At either end of the scale just 12% spent over $3,000 and 19% spent $999 and under.

WebVisible also found that small businesses are, on the whole, purchasing more keywords. The average small business purchased 55 keyword phrases in Q3 2009, up 30% from Q3 2008's median number of 43.

Additional findings from WebVisible's report, which focuses on search, include:

- In Q3 2009, Google accounted for 60.4% of search advertising spending. Yahoo! accounted for 26.2%, Bing 10.5% and Ask 2.4%. Google lost 5 points year-over-year as spend shifted among the other search engines.

- CTRs improved year-on-year across all the engines, with the biggest improvement on Yahoo!, whose CTR improved 123% from Q3 2008 to Q3 2009.

- Average CPC is on the rise, with Google up 14% over a year ago. Google's average CPC was approximately 30% higher than Yahoo! or Bing in Q3 2009.

According to WebVisible's Jenny Brown, "While Google remains the dominant player among small business advertisers, Yahoo and Bing (formerly MSN) have gained significant market share since the third quarter of 2008, as much as 5%. This is exceptional news for Microsoft's Bing, which launched this past summer, making its first few months in the search marketing space highly successful."

Tags: online marketing, search engine marketing, search marketing, search spend, small business