Richard Zwicky of Enquisite recently posted the results of a study examining data from April 2006 through March 2008 examining the trend for web surfers to click on search engine result page 1 or later pages.  The results are fascinating yet also alarming for companies who are comfortable being on page 2 or even page 3.

The trend has been a gradual increase for people to click through on page 1 results instead of progressing to further pages.  In April of 2007, 85.5% of search engine users clicked through on page 1 with 7.61% clicking through on page 2.  By March of 2008, the percentage of users clicking through on page 1 had risen to 89.71% with 5.93% clicking through on page 2.

That is an incredible variation between page 1 click thru traffic and page 2 click thru traffic–we’re looking at more than 15 times the number of users who clicking through page 2 click through on page 1.  Fifteen times.  If your business is not ranking on page 1, you’ve just decreased the probability of users finding you by 93%

Aaron Walls of SEO Book plays the game out even further.  He refers to a reader’s website whose #5 position in Google (on page 1, of course) draws in 6,000 unique visitors per month.  But relying on leaked search data from AOL, he speculates that a #1 spot in Google for that client would potentially draw in 50,000 uniques per month.

Laura A. Granka, Thorsten Joachims and Geri Cay of Cornell University conducted an eye tracking study back in 2004 using a small sample of undergraduate students (the majority of whom relied on Google for their typical searching) and observed that the #1 spot in Google captured 28.43% of the typical searcher’s attention (in terms of time of the eye fixation) and the #2 spot captured 25.08% of their attention; however, even with the top two positions capturing approximately the same attention, in the end, 56.36% of the click thrus went right into the #1 spot while the #2 spot captured only a mere 13.45% of click thrus.  Admittedly, the study is dated, didn’t bring into consideration the plethora of Adwords on a typical first page of Google, and was based on a small group size; however, it still strongly points toward the incredible value of prime positioning, and it sharply contrasts the value differential between the top real estate position and the secondary position.

In conclusion, don’t sit back in the lazy chair assuming a page 2 or even page 3 position will turn your company into a success overnight.  Page 2 positions have much home (as Zwicky mentions), but the page 1 position is where your target should be.  And even when you’ve reached #10 at the bottom of page 1, don’t give up yet.  The real traffic is at the top.

We’ve got a client who’s been fighting in position #2 in Google for a strategic market.  By gaining position #1, they stand to have their traffic & RFPs possibly even tripled. Press on … that’s why a good search engine strategy doesn’t merely consist of a one time patch job–it’s an ever changing, ever evolving search world.  You’ve got to keep pushing forward.

In the month of April 2008, 67.9% of all U.S. searches were “owned” by Google.  This is a 2.6% increase from last April. Yahoo held its ground at just over 20.28%, losing almost 1/2 % since last year.  MSN dropped from 7.77% to 6.26% (no wonder Microsoft is desperate to woo Yahoo), and Ask continues to gain ground, growing from 3.69% to 4.17%.  Though Ask is still the small player, 4.17% of US searches is nothing to look down upon, especially when you consider that the other 45 search engines considered in this latest Hitwise study accounted for a mere 1.40% of US searches.

Search Engine                  April 2007                       April 2008
Google                                  65.26%                            67.90%
Yahoo                                   20.73%                           20.28%
MSN                                     7.77%                              6.26%
Ask                                       3.69%                              4.17% 

How does this affect the average business?  I’d recommend a comparable division of your search engine optimization & search marketing dollars in regards to addressing each engine.

Search engine optimization:

Google: obviously, Google is king, and he continues to dominate, and no strategist sees that changing anytime soon. I would invest 75% of my SEO budget toward focusing on Google.

Yahoo: 20% of US traffic is too significant to overlook.  Companies that merely focus their search strategy on Google are forfeiting 20 visits out of 100.  Turn that into revenue and you’re missing 20 million for each 100 million you could be bringing in.  At the same time, there is a lot up in the air with Yahoo at this time with the stock at bottom and Microsoft pressuring them to budge.  I would invest 10% of my SEO budget toward Yahoo at this time.

MSN: Unless something unexpected happens with Yahoo/MSN, it sure looks like MSN’s hold in the search world will continue to drop.  The only reasons they’ve held on so long is because they’re the default search engine for Internet Explorer and many people still use the MSN homepage and have MSN related email (including Hotmail/Live mail).  I would invest 7.5% into MSN/Live.

Ask: You’ve got to admit, even if you’ve been holding out on this one.  Ask is making some significant gains here for a small search engine that just won’t give up.  If they make some modifications to their home page appearance (face it–they plaster their home page with sponsored search because they need the cash desperately right now) and continue ingeniously coming up with more options to give their searchers (they’ve been doing well so far), I predict Ask will soon bypass Microsoft and may even grow past them.  It will take some major reworking on their part to do that, though. But, they have some nice traffic and I wouldn’t ignore them.  A small fraction of traffic like that still can give your site a major boost, especially if you rank well for a competitive term in a small search engine like MSN or Ask.  I’d give them 7.5% of my SEO budget.

Search Engine Marketing

Google: 66% of the SEM budget.

Yahoo: 20% of the SEM budget.

MSN: 10% of the SEM budget.

Ask: Lousy ads all over.  I’d much rather invest the cash into SEO for Ask rather than the ads; but, we’ll go with 4% of the SEM budget.

Just looking at these brief search engine traffic stats, you can see why it is so crucial to place the heavy artillery into your Google marketing portfolio. To rank well in Yahoo and MSN but to fare poorly in Google is to completely miss the mark. But, at the same time, for a company to boast about its performance in Google while lacking completely in Yahoo, MSN & Ask is like a student boasting about getting a 67% on their report card. Do your homework carefully, then plan a strategy that has potential for success.