Recent HitWise statistics show that over 60% of Australian Internet users visit local search engines to surf online. The average session duration for the Computers and Internet - Search Engines and Directories category during the week ending 22/01/05 was 8 minutes. This is a decrease of 31 seconds since the same time last year possibly demonstrating that Australian Internet users are increasingly becoming better at searching online - or perhaps search engines are returning better results then one year ago.

If you are marketing to Australia you should therefore be regularly checking to see how your site is performing on the various search engines: MSN, Yahoo! Australia/NZ, Google Australia etc. A comprehensive list of Australian search engines can be located at the Search Engine Colossus site.

(And given the importance of web advertising as part of your marketing mix, if your site isn't ranking well ... maybe you need to get some help from a marketing/web consultant. And don't let them sell you on the idea that it will cost you thousands to list with the major search engines either. There are much simpler (and far more cost effective) ways to achieve the same result.)