When clients ask us at Relevance Web Marketing why it is so important to be in the first position on the Google organic search, we show them this diagram.
The diagram shows that approximately 38% of Google users click on the 1st position on the search engine listings; this prooves how important it is to work on your SEO, and link building. As 2nd position counts for 13%, and 3rd position counts for 10% you can see that the further down the list you go, the less people click on those listings. For those websites in 5th position they will only be receiving 5% of the potential traffic available. This research shows how important it is to be 1st. Being on the first page is not good enough anymore – even 5th is a waste of your marketing Euro. The graph will not be the same for every industry, and we admit that somebody searching for a rental may look at 1st, 2nd and 3rd and go down the list collecting information. However, somebody might also change their search term slightly depending on what they find before they come to you further down the list, so it is essential that you are 1st and do not take the risk of your business being lost.
Interestingly enough you will see that being 11th is better than being in 10th as more people look at the top of the 2nd page than the bottom of the 1st. One could try to knock a site down to 11th rather than up to 9th – the process is called Google Bowling.
This valuable user graph is the quintessence of the SEO world, and should define your keyword strategy and SEO campaign. Do you go for a whole ‘fleet’ of keywords and spread yourself thin, or do you concentrate on the best keywords and get them into 1st spot?