The stats are from an infographic produced by Onward Search, an online recruitment company. Last December, created one about SEO salaries and job locations. This time, paid search gets the focus:

Want the infographic guide for yourself? You’ll find it here: PPC Jobs Salary Guide.

Social Media Examiner announced the results of its fourth annual survey, which this year had replies from more than 3,800 social media marketers around the world.

When asked what other marketing channels they use, search engine optimization (SEO) was the No. 2 response behind e-mail marketing. Paid search — or “online ads” as the survey called it — was far down the list at number six. Sixty-five percent of social media marketers say they use SEO, compared to only 38 percent who use paid search advertising.

B2B social marketers were slightly more likely to do SEO (67 percent) than their B2C counterparts (62 percent).

Going forward, 68 percent of respondents said they’re planning to increase their SEO efforts — a number that’s down slightly from 71 percent in 2011. Only nine percent this year said they have no plans to use SEO.

Only 43 percent of the social media marketers surveyed say they’re planning to increase their use of PPC advertising.

As you’d expect, Facebook was the No. 1 social networking site with 92 percent adoption. Google+ was a distant sixth, but most respondents say they’re planning to use Google+ more in the future. I’ve written up more about that aspect of the study on Marketing Land: Survey: Only 40 Percent Of Marketers Are Using Google+, But Many Plan To Change That.

(Stock image via Shutterstock.com. Used under license.)

The last time SEOmoz ran this survey was two years ago, you can see the results of that survey over here.

The survey has 54 questions and should take you about 20 minutes to complete. The question topics include:

• Your Work in the Industry
• Questions for Consultants, Freelancers, and Agencies
• Learning and Improving Internet Marketing Skills
• Internet and Inbound Marketing Scope and Process
• Inbound Marketing Tools and Tactics
• SEO Tools and Tactics
• Social Media Tools and Tactics
• Predictions/Opinions for Internet/Inbound Marketing 

SEOmoz is offering prizes to take the survey including the Grand Prize Winner will get a 16GB Wifi iPad 3. Three First Prize Winners will each get a $75 ThinkGeek gift certificate. Ten Second Prize Winners will each get a $25 gift certificate to the SEOmoz Zazzle Store. Here are the rules to win.

Please take the survey over here.

SEMPO announced their 2012 State of Search Marketing Survey a few weeks ago. Make sure to take that survey as well.

Related Stories:

• The State Of Search Engine Marketing 2010
• The State of Search Engine Marketing 2006
• The State Of Search Engine Marketing 2007
• SEMPO: Google Dominates But Social Now Widely Used For PPC
• Infographic: NYC & LA Tops For SEO Jobs & Salaries By Specialty
• View Of A Thriving Industry: The SEOmoz Industry Survey 2010
• SEMPO Releases Survey Data Revealing State Of SEM

Image credit to ShutterStock.

This morning Slingshot SEO is releasing a fascinating report (registration required) that also argues marketers are placing too much emphasis not only on the “last click” but also the “first click.” It shows how the value and potential priority of various digital marketing channels change if one uses a “multi-touch attribution model.”

Year-Long Study Analyzed 23 Million Conversions

The year-long 2011 study “analyzed over 23 million multiple-interaction conversions across 30 domains, which include large retailers and service providers.” It assigned equal value for each visit or step in the conversion path.

Slingshot SEO explains this “flat multi-touch attribution model”:

For example, in the following series of interactions leading to a conversion, each of the five interactions is credited with an equal portion of the conversion value: Organic Search ($20) > Referral ($20) > Social Network ($20) > Email ($20) > Direct ($20) = $100 conversion. In this case, each channel receives the conversion value divided by the number of interactions in the chain.

Direct Visits Getting Too Much Credit

The company reported that for these 30 clients, “‘direct visits’ were getting more credit for conversions under a last-touch model, as they were often the last interaction before a conversion. As a result, other channels like ‘organic search,’ ‘paid advertising,’ and ‘referrals’ were typically undervalued.” Slingshot SEO said that consumers on average “took 2.79 interactions before converting” and that the final touch or step before the conversion “was typically a direct visit to the site or a branded keyword search.”

The chart above shows the channels that were overvalued and undervalued by Slingshot SEO clients. The negative (orange) cells reflect how much the channel was overvalued; the green or positive cells indicate the percent by which the channel was undervalued.

Organic Search Worth 77 to 81 Percent More than Thought

Organic search was the most consistently undervalued channel. Slingshot SEO’s attribution model argues that “‘organic search’ should have been worth as much as 77.25% more than previously thought, and ‘non-branded organic’ should have been worth as much as 81.59% more.”

It should be mentioned that organic SEO is part of what Slingshot SEO does for a living and so the conclusions and implied recommendations of the report do serve its interests. In addition, the equal weighting of each “touch” is hypothetical and doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual value of each channel in the conversion process. However this is the identical methodology that Microsoft/Atlas was advocating.

Having said all that, the multi-touch attribution model does start to expand the aperture and get marketers to think more holistically about consumer behavior, as well as the fact that multiple influences do play in every purchase decision. As we’ve known for a number of years, consumer search behavior doesn’t exist in a vacuum and is typically stimulated by some event, ad or other influence — often from traditional media or interactions in the “real world.”

SEMPO and Econsultancy are asking those in the search and social communities to take the survey over here. The survey will be open until open through March 28, 2012. All SEMPO members get the final report included in their membership, if you are not a SEMPO member, the only other way to get the report for free is to participate in the survey yourself.

Here are some of the past results from 2011, 2010, 2009, 2007 and 2006.

To see all of SEMPO’s published research, see this page.

Again, please take the survey over here.

Related Stories:

• The State Of Search Engine Marketing 2010
• The State of Search Engine Marketing 2006
• The State Of Search Engine Marketing 2007
• SEMPO: Google Dominates But Social Now Widely Used For PPC
• Infographic: NYC & LA Tops For SEO Jobs & Salaries By Specialty
• View Of A Thriving Industry: The SEOmoz Industry Survey 2010
• SEMPO Releases Survey Data Revealing State Of SEM

Over 500 people and companies who offer search engine optimization services were asked about how their models. Turns out, it’s most common to charge $100 to $150 per hour, in the US. But by-the-hour consulting is only one of four nearly co-equal ways of charging.

Also popular is project-based pricing, where the average price is between $2,500 to $5,000, in the US. That’s also the same average price for those who buy on a monthly retainer basis. Fixed prices on a contract basis is also a popular way that SEO is sold, but no averages were provided.

The survey was conducted by SEOmoz and compiled into the infographic below by AYTM:

Want the infographic for yourself? You’ll find it, along with more details about the survey and findings, at SEOmoz here: SEO Pricing: 600+ Agencies Share Costs of Services & Pricing Models.

Need to learn more about SEO? Then be sure to see our list of resources, including a background video, on our What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization? page.

These stats and more are offered in an infographic the people at Onward Search, an online recruitment company, have put together:

Want the infographic guide for yourself? You’ll find it here: SEO Salary Guide.

These stats, along with many more — such as which social media platforms see the most use by marketers (hint: Facebook) — were compiled into the infographic below by the people at Webmarketing123, which backed the survey:

Want the infographic for yourself? It was sent to us as part of press materials today about the survey, which we covered in this story: SEO Beats PPC & Social Media For Generating Leads, New Industry Report Says. It hasn’t yet been posted online for others to use, but it might appear later on the Webmarketing123 blog.

Feeling you need to get started in SEO, PPC and social media? A good place are Search Engine Land’s overview pages:

• What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?
• What Is PPC, CPC & Paid Search Marketing?
• What Is Social Media Marketing

The numbers come from the 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report, which was compiled by Webmarketing123, a California-based online marketing agency. The company surveyed more than 500 U.S. online marketers in August and September; about two-thirds of all respondents identified themselves as B2B marketers.

Whether B2B or B2C, both groups of marketers agree that SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation. 57 percent of B2B marketers credit SEO as their primary source of generating leads, while 41 percent of B2C marketers said the same thing.

Both types of marketers say that website traffic is the primary way they measure the success of online marketing efforts. Brand awareness was at the bottom of the list for measuring success by both B2B and B2C respondents.

The survey asked a number of budget-related questions, including one about which channels get the majority of the marketers’ budgets. On the B2B side, one-third indicated that SEO gets the majority of their budget. But on the B2C side, more than 42 percent say that PPC gets the majority of their budget — about double the number of B2C marketers who said SEO is their top budget allocation.

Overall, 60 percent of respondents said they plan to increase their budget for social media marketing in 2012; 53 percent plan to increase their budget for SEO and 40 percent will increase their PPC budget.

Those increases in social media spending are likely field by another couple statistics from the survey: 68 percent say they’ve generated leads from either Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, while 55 percent have closed deals from social media leads.

The 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report can be downloaded from Webmarketing123′s website. You’ll need to provide name and contact information. There’s also an associated infographic with many statistic, which we’ve posted separately here: Infographic: Digital Marketer Views On SEO, PPC & Social Media.

The Tech 200 ranks companies not based on overall revenue, but on sales growth between 2008 and 2010. Congrats to the following search marketing-related companies that we’ve spotted on the Tech 200:

• Slingshot SEO
• HubSpot
• SEOmoz
• Increase Visibility
• Yodle
• MediaTrust
• Fathom
• Covario
• eZanga
• Wpromote
• Location 3 Media

To be considered for inclusion, companies must submit their data to Lead411; there’s no cost to apply for consideration on the annual list. (If we missed any, please let us know in the comments.)

SEO: One Of Highest ROI Tactics

As part of this year’s list, Lead411 surveyed the companies to find out how they’ve grown their businesses. Although the respondents collectively spend only 13% of their marketing budgets on SEO, it was listed as one of the highest ROI tactics behind email marketing and trade shows, and more than double traditional advertising.

SEO was also the second-most popular tactic in use by these companies, with 74% saying they have budget set aside for SEO efforts. Public relations came in first, with 82% saying they include that in their budgets.