MarketingSherpa held a conference call today to discuss the initial results of their 2005 Search Engine Benchmark Guide.  You can download the slides from the presentation here. 

As to be expected from MarketingSherpa, some very enlightening things came from this briefing. Just a few key points:

Eyetracking - A compelling chart to show what people are looking at on the screen when on a search engine. (In this case, Yahoo) I was surprised at how LITTLE the paid links were viewed and clicked vs. the organic listings. Contrary to what the PPC search proponents would have you believe. Also interesting to see the pattern of what searchers look at (upper left), and what they actually click on (middle left).

Trademark use by affiliates - Clearly, the practice of letting affiliate utilize your trademarks is becoming much less common. 39% of merchants no longer allow affiliates to use trademarks, vs. 21% just eight months ago. (Slide has a misprint, purple bar should be January 05, not January 04)

SEO Agencies - One slide I had a hard time believing was the one that showed companies who launch an internal SEO strategy see a 38% lift in overall traffic, while companies who use an SEO agency see a 110% lift in traffic. Now keep in mind, agencies responded to the survey as well as marketers, so who knows how accurate this might be.  I’ve certainly never seen a 110% lift from any projects I’ve worked on where an SEO agency was brought in. Have you?

There was a lot more information contained in the slides, so I encourage you to check it out.