Searching For Answers - A New Study

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April 15, 2008 by James
Filed under: Internet Marketing 

A new study recently released about web searchers click behavior shows we click specialized content within general search results more than we do within the results of specialized searches.

Sidebar: You may recall that search engines now combine mixed sources into their results - news, video, images and so forth. Prior to about a year ago, you needed to search news for news, images for images and so on.

“So What’s The Answer Johnny?”

The study shows the following results…

  • 36% of searchers click news results within blended search results, while only 17% click a news result after conducting a news-specific search.
  • 31% of search engine users click image results within blended search results, while 26% click an image result after conducting an image-specific search.
  • 17% of search engine users click video results within blended search results, while only 10% click a video result after conducting a video-specific search.
  • Images are the most clicked result type after a specialized search and
  • News items are the most clicked result type within blended search results. [*Interesting*]

Good News, Bad News…

Just under 7 out of 10 people click a result on the first page with a little over 9 out of 10 of us only look only at the first 3 pages. And approximately 4 out of 10 of us consider search engine placement to be indicative of our leadership position within the marketplace!

So What Does This Mean To Me?

Clearly you need to “Be Found, Be Noticed or Be History!” If your chosen key phrases are not displayed in the first few pages of the results then you are effectively being overlooked. Also, when you do show up in the listings, your result needs to be clicked. This goes full circle to the classical direct response mantras of yesteryear. Write compelling web page titles. The more attractive the headline of your web page in the search results, the more people will click.

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