MarketingSherpa has released a new, exhaustive study of search marketing, including data from marketers and consumers.

There is plenty of valuable information here. Some highlights included are new information on click-fraud statistics, eye-tracking heat map studies of Google results pages and SEO vs. paid search spending analysis.

The eye-tracking study is somewhat predictable, but interesting nonetheless. Most of the attention from viewers falls into the top few results listings, including Google's One Box - an organic result where website owners should be making every attempt to get listed. The paid results on the right side of Google's results page gets little, if no attention at all. What I also found very interesting is that most users read only the first three or four words in a headline listing, no matter how brief the headline is. That places a big emphasis on good, brief headline writing and the importance of instantly grabbing a user's attention.

The entire report is available for purchase, but a portion can be read for free here.