Compete.com released an October 2013 study that showed 53 percent of organic search clicks go to the first link.
Let’s put that into perspective:
Let’s say that 1000 people do a search monthly for “Left handed rabbit skinners”. (You know they DO, right?) If you are the #1 ranked website for that term (according to Compete.com’s survey) you should expect to get around 530 visitors to your website. If you are ranked NUMBER THREE, you’ll only see 90 of those 1000 people who are looking for you!
A lot of people put stock in “just getting in the TOP 10″ and if in the scenario above you were ranked NUMBER TEN, you only see 10 of those prospects make it to your website.
STILL HAPPY WITH BEING “IN THE TOP TEN”? Didn’t think so.
Share of Listing by Type
Share of Organic Clicks by Rank
We Are Talking SEO here
Advertising on the most popular search engine, Google can be done in two ways; either through organic “natural” listings as a result of Best Practice SEO content creation and good inbound linking, OR through Adwords (paid search advertising). Truthfully, we’ve always focused about 98% of our client’s SEO strategy to be that of the organic variety – however many advocate that a successful online marketing campaign would be one that consists of both (and other online marketing methods, such as email marketing and banner advertising, etc). (See our Digital Marketing page.)
More SEO 101
In recent years, Google has introduced both universal search e.g. embedded images, videos, news etc, and local search features in the search listings immediately after the first listing in Google. It is likely to be a key reason as to why the first listing in Google has seen such a large increase in clicks.
Overall, with such a significant volume of search listings being ‘organic’ in nature and 77% of search users clicking on the top 3 search listings (87% on top 5 listings) this clearly reinforces both the importance of SEO within the marketing mix and the necessity for businesses to invest in high quality SEO services.
The Compete report is certainly an interesting read and provides further insight for businesses and search marketing professionals alike to better understand search user behavior. To download and read the full 8 page report for yourself head over to Compete.com and download the report here.
SEO Best Practices or SEO BEAST PRACTICES?
Our targeted, custom-tailored organic optimization solutions focus on ethical, Best Practice SEO principles to significantly increase the efficiency of your website and create a website that will excel within your industry.
We go well beyond page/keyword indexing and ranking optimization by creating actionable, long-term strategies based on data gathered through constant monitoring and testing in order to reach your target audience more effectively and more often.
A Proven SEO Approach that Works EVERY TIME.
After we have determined any and all of the search terms that would be beneficial to your website, we move into creating the content needed to win rankings for as many of those search phrases as possible within your budget.
On-page Meta Data
We’ll optimize specific elements of your website that search engines use to identify the topic of your web pages. This can include writing compelling content for your title and description tags.
Links
Using every tool at our disposal we will analyze back-links from millions of relevant websites and generate a list of the most powerful sites you should target for a quality link campaign.We’ll only recommend or implement “good neighborhoods” from which to obtain in-bound links.
If your site has previously included back-links, we’ll analyze your current backlink portfolio to identify any harmful or low-quality links that need to be removed.
Local Search
Local business listings such as Google+ Business and Bing Local are crucial in generating local leads for small to medium businesses. They also rank extremely well when set up correctly. We will fully optimize your local pages and provide strategies to increase positive reviews and improve your visibility.
