SEMPO’s State of Search Engine Marketing Report is a very important document in the search industry, providing a good look at its growth (or lack thereof). Fortunately, as SEMPO’s outgoing president explained in an interview with Abby Johnson, the news is pretty much all positive this year.

At SES New York, SEMPO‘s Sara Holoubek summarized the state of search marketing by saying, “Things are looking good for search.” She also said, “Folks should feel confident in their spending.”

In terms of some specifics, Holoubek then stated, “The data suggested that we will have 14 percent growth, and that means that the North American search engine marketing budget will be $16.6 billion in 2010.”

Finally, here’s a rather stunning fact with regards to where most of that money is headed: “97 percent of the respondents are advertising on Google.”

It looks like the search marketing industry – along with Google’s bank account balance – is in great shape, then, regardless of the recent recession. Indeed, a record number of people (about 1,500 individuals in 16 countries) responded to SEMPO’s survey, making the results hard to dismiss.