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We're often asked how important it is to be number one in Google. Of course, without any research, you can presume being number one will bring the majority of traffic. But if competition is too strong, at what point do you consider a search engine optimisation campaign a success? We take a look at industry wide research and give you our verdict below. What does research show?Cornell UniversityIn 2008, Cornell University performed eye tracking research on the use of Google. Their results on "How does rank influence the amount of attention a link receives?" proved very interesting. The glaring fact was that the top three of Google's results received 79% of all clicks. Interestingly, users in the experiment appeared to spend virtually the same amount of time looking at links ranked No.1 and No.2, despite users normally always clicking on the 1st link. After the first two links, fixation drops off markedly. One interesting suggestion is that, once people get beyond the first five links, they have to scroll down leaving the remaining links which get similar attention. You could argue that whether you are 5th or 10th, it's not that important. Eye TrackingJoint research led by eye tracking firm Eye Tools provided interesting results too. Their research showed a 'golden triangle' where most of the user attention was spent on. Below is an image displaying the results (click on it for a larger version). The red represents the most viewed areas, with grey being not viewed at all. The 'X' marks on the image is where people have clicked.
Despite previous research claiming Google AdWords adverts were
largely ignored, the triangle clearly show these and the first few
'organic' results are the most viewed. The full breakdown of viewing
attention is below. The research was comparable with Cornell's where, after a sharp decline, once a user had scrolled to the other results viewing figures went up again, supporting a theory that being bottom of the 1st page isn't so bad after all! What do people think?It's always good to hear what people actually say in addition to advanced research. A survey from iProspect showed that 49% of us change our search terms and/or search engine after not finding our desired result on the first page. Just 8% of us are keen enough to go beyond the third page of results. Results from the research also suggests that being on the first page of search engine results indicates to people that you are important. In 2008, 39% of search engine users believed that the companies whose websites were among the top search engine results were the leaders in their field. This figure has grown from 36% in 2006, and 33% in 2002. Another 42% feel neutral on this question, with only 19% believing that the top search engine rankings do not automatically indicate an industry leader. What does the research mean?The web provides a lot of information at our finger tips, and because of this, people expect this information quickly. The result is people are becoming increasingly impatient, so when it comes to Google, if an answer isn't found quickly, users would rather try another search phrase. More research from Enquisite suggests 90% of all clicks come from the first page of results. Being in the top three will give a huge amount more traffic than the lower positions, but if you are near the bottom, the difference between 6th and 10th isn't such a huge gulf. However, the difference between being 10th and 11th (i.e. the second page) is night and day. The research ultimately shows that however attractive or advanced your website is, if you really want to have an online success story, you have to invest heavily in Search Engine Optimisation as well as on the website itself.
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