Q2 Search Trends Signal Recovery – SMB Ad Spend Up 160 Percent Over a Year Ago, Job Recruitment Services and Luxury Categories Spending More, According to WebVisible Report

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Small businesses continue to increase their search spending over last year, while Yahoo! drew some of that spend away from competitors Google and Ask, according to the latest quarterly report from WebVisible (www.webvisible.com), released today. Businesses offering jewelry, loans, mortgages and job recruitment services increased spending significantly from Q1 to Q2 2010.

“There are several findings in this report that could indicate a recovering economy – search ad spend among small businesses continues to increase over last year, categories like jewelry and job recruitment services have increased spending over the last quarter, and consumer response rates continue to rise”

The average small business advertiser spent $2,231 on search advertising in Q2 2010 – up by 1.4 percent from Q1 2010 and by 159 percent over Q2 2009. This continues the strong year-over-year (YoY) gains seen in the last several quarters – YoY spending was up 91 percent in Q1 2010 and 111 percent in Q4 2009.

Consistent with previous quarters, the most popular advertiser categories in Q2 2010 were attorneys, general contractors and dentists. Air conditioning contractors, landscapers and businesses offering irrigation services, fencing and awnings increased seasonal spending from Q1 to Q2 2010.

These are among the top findings of the fourth installment of The WebVisible Report: State of Small Business Online Advertising Q2 2010, which examines trends among WebVisible’s U.S. advertisers from Q2 2009 through Q2 2010 and represents nearly $23 million in U.S. small business advertiser spending from more than 12,000 individual advertisers in Q2 2010. This report also includes an analysis of data from more than 10,000 advertisers in the U.K. in Q1 and Q2 2010.

“There are several findings in this report that could indicate a recovering economy – search ad spend among small businesses continues to increase over last year, categories like jewelry and job recruitment services have increased spending over the last quarter, and consumer response rates continue to rise,” said WebVisible CEO Kirsten Mangers. “Over the past year, conversion activity increased on almost all website actions – filling out an online form, watching a video, bookmarking a page or printing driving directions. For advertisers this is great news. The more options a company provides, the more actions a website visitor will take – giving advertisers multiple opportunities to establish a connection with each potential buyer.”

Nearly half of all clicks – 43 percent – resulted in a web conversion in Q2 2010, up by 22 percent over Q1 2010 and 39 percent over Q2 2009. Conversion activity more than doubled for form fills, video views, printed driving directions and bookmarking in Q2 2010 versus Q2 2009, suggesting that users are taking advantage of additional website options provided by advertisers.

The percentage of clicks resulting in a phone call to the advertiser increased by 29 percent over the previous quarter and by 58 percent over the same period last year.

In Q2 2010, spending shifted toward Yahoo! and away from Google and Ask, while Bing remained flat. Yahoo! gained 4.0 percentage points in share, while Google lost 2.0 percentage points, Bing lost 0.6 and Ask lost 1.4.

Click-through-rate (CTR) was up for all the search engines when compared to a year ago. But Yahoo! was the only one to experience an increase over the last quarter. Yahoo!’s CTR for Q2 increased by 35 percent over Q1 2010. Compared to Q1, Google’s CTR was down 4.4 percent and Bing’s was down 6.6 percent.

CPC (cost per click) increased by 23 percent on Yahoo! and by 9.8 percent on Bing. Google showed the most stable CPCs, with a quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) increase of just 2.2 percent.

U.K. Search Trends

Yahoo! performed the strongest for small business advertisers in the U.K. in Q2 2010 – its share of spending increased by 8.1 percent over Q1 2010, its CTR improved by 3.3 percent and CPCs increased by 4.7 percent.

Bing and Google lost U.K. share of spending in Q2 2010 versus Q1: Bing’s share was down 15.1 percent and Google’s share was down 6.9 percent.

CPCs rose in the U.K. by 5.4 percent on Google and 3.7 percent on Bing. Bing’s CTR dropped by 7 percent, while Google’s CTR was up by 1.5 percent.

U.K. CPCs were on average one-sixth of CPCs in the United States in Q2 2010 (adjusted for currency). Clicks on Bing and Yahoo! cost the same amount in each respective country, and were 20 percent cheaper than clicks on Google in both countries.

The top 10 U.K. advertiser categories accounted for less than 14 percent of total advertisers in Q2 2010, compared to 43 percent in the United States.

Average U.K. advertiser spending decreased by 1.8 percent from Q1 to Q2 2010. The categories that showed the highest gains in that period were printers, beauty salons and car servicing shops.

Anyone can request a full copy of The WebVisible Report by going here: http://www.webvisible.com/wvreport. Members of the media contact info@edgecommunicationsinc.com or call (818) 990-5001.

About WebVisible, Inc.

WebVisible makes it easy for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) to be found online, where and how customers are looking. The leading provider of local online marketing products and services since 2001, WebVisible was among the first to pioneer the use of search as a reliable, measurable avenue to connect directly with a buyer’s needs. The company has helped more than 100,000 SMB customers from more than 4,000 industries in 14 countries to create innovative and accountable Internet advertising campaigns. SMBs partner with WebVisible directly and through its many partner companies, including Intuit, British Telecom and The New York Times Company. WebVisible is based in Irvine, Calif. For more information, visit www.webvisible.com or call 949-255-9677.