62% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page of results!
Date Published 02/05/2006 - Click here for more recent news
That very influential Search Engine Marketing Firm, iProspect, have just published a very useful 'organic' search engine user behaviour report for 2006. This complements reports they'd previously issued in 2002 and 2004. In amongst lots of other interesting findings they highlight that 62% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page of results and further, that 90% click on a result within the first 3 pages of search results. The importance of appearing high in the search results has actually increased over the 4 years between studies - from 48% in 2002 to 62% in 2006. That's just the kind of 'power' statistic that's likely to keep the SEO community in business for a little while longer and certainly reinforces the EASIserv.com view that if you're not in the first three pages of search results - you're toast!
In a second, related finding, 41% of search engine users who continue their search when not finding what they see first time around, report changing their search term and/or search engine if they do not find what they are looking for on the first page of results. A full 88% do so if they do not find what they seek in the first three pages. In the case where an initial search is unsuccessful, 82% of search engine users will re-launch their search using the same search engine but add more keywords to refine or 'qualify' their subsequent search. At EASIserv.com that's certainly been our experience of search engine user behaviour and we tend to factor this known behaviour into our SEO discussions with clients and prospective clients.
Another aspect brought out in this report, reinforces the need for marketers to not only target a few short, broad terms with their campaigns but also an abundance of longer more specific keyword phrases. These often produce more 'qualified' traffic and better conversion rates. This propensity for keywords that generate little traffic and few conversions each, but significant numbers of both collectively, is often referred to as 'the long tail' or in other quarters it's referred to as, "picking the low hanging fruit". In reality all this means is that if you can deliver search engine users to a 'qualified' web page that's specifically targeted on what they're searching for - then, although you've got less traffic volume, you've probably got a better chance at converting them.
In the case of EASIserv.com we are a web design company with a town centre office in Northampton, UK - but the kind of 'virtual' world that we inhabit, doesn't require that all our new clients walk into our office to sign-up for a website. We've designed websites for clients throughout the UK that we've never met face-to-face and we have some international clients too, in the far-flung outposts. But our strongest constituency, at this time, is definitely within the Northampton business community and they tend to find us by searching with keywords like web design northampton, website design northampton, graphic design northampton and so on. And yes, they usually end up in our office at some point.
If you look at the number of results returned today (by Google's pages from the UK) for each of these keyword searches for web design in the UK and then 'qualified' to places in and around Northamptonshire - you'll get the idea. How an 86.4 million page uk-wide search for web design can be refined or 'qualified' into 23.7k results in the Northamptonshire village of Earls Barton. So if you can deliver-up an appropriate first page result to an Earls Barton search engine user who's looking for web design - then there's a better chance of converting that 'qualified' search traffic. That's the low-hanging-fruit / long-tail theory, anyway.
| web design uk | 86,400,000 results |
| web design northampton | 1,380,000 results |
| web design kettering | 352,000 results |
| web design wellingborough | 237,000 results |
| web design daventry | 159,000 results |
| web design earls barton | 23,700 results |
NB: If you've got a website and you're not sure how it stacks up in the search engine friendliness stakes - EASIserv.com can carry out a website analysis report for you, for a nominal fee.
If you'd like to read a bit more of the iProspect report - they kindly offer a FREE 17 page PDF. http://www.iprospect.com/premiumPDFs/WhitePaper_2006_SearchEngineUserBehavior.pdf.
Personal Note: If you have a look at the iProspect website, you'll see that they are headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts. For those of you who are fans of Frank Sinatra you may, or may not, know that he made an album in the early 1970s called Watertown (I believe it was themed on Watertown, NY rather than Mass). Penned by Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes it was a bit of a dirge and sold only 35,000 copies. I bought one of them and if my brother Sandy ever reads this - I'd like it back!
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