At the beginning of every SEO training session I conduct a quick straw poll to gauge how much people understand about search and how they feel about the factors that might be affecting their search results.

In an effort to test these responses more scientifically,  I commissioned a survey in conjunction with CINT to ask a census-representative sample of 1000 U.S. citizens how they felt about digital marketing, organic search, PPC, personalization, social search and SEO.

I hope that this research will be helpful to any SEO Consultants who need to convince their clients or employer of the merits of organic search over other, less-trusted forms of online marketing.

The results were, for the most part, consistent with my own findings and indicate a revealing (and often surprising) range of attitudes, misconceptions and behaviours. Of particular interest to those working in SEO is likely to be the overall positive attitude towards sites that rank prominently in organic SERPs compared to those that appear as sponsored listings, even where there exists no real understanding of what makes a page rank prominently on Google.

If you would like to hear more thoughts about online marketing, please follow me on Twitter Follow @DannyRichman

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