Google drops 80/20 search bomb
At the Great B2B Marketing Debate, where SEO (search engine optimisation) went head to head against PPC (pay per click) and won, Stuart Small from Google let drop a bomb of immense proportions – Google knows that 80 per cent of searchers click on a natural result and 20 per cent click on a paid listing. Judith Lewis, SEO expert at Centaur Media elaborates on what this means for the industry…
I’m not alone in reeling after that statement. Suddenly SEMs have a number, provided by Google, about how important having a natural listing is. This is no longer an area of speculation – we have the number from the horse’s mouth.
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That this has come from Google and not a third party is what makes it so staggeringly important. Suddenly we have a window in to the hidden world of Google search results and insight into the likelihood a searcher will click on an ad over a natural listing.
Being in the number one position for a relevant search result is important. The golden triangle, skewed recently by changes Google made to top-of-page paid advertising, still dominates much of SEM thinking. The PubCon session on Universal Search illustrated how that golden triangle is changing but still the industry was not sure of the percentage of clicks on paid results. Now we have that magical number – 80/20.
I’m not surprised Google is secretive – this is proprietary information and commercially sensitive. This percentage isn’t something that should have been handed over unreservedly. Now that this number has been released though, we have a golden opportunity to better understand searcher behaviour.
PPC or pay per click advertising is a way for a business that is not currently ranking on the first page of results for specific desirable keywords/phrases to get on that first page. Run as an auction, a business bids how much they are willing to pay per click and the automatic bidding software takes over and only charges just enough to get you above everyone bidding less – you do not always pay your maximum bid amount.
PPC is employed by businesses in many ways. However, short term offers, new sites, seasonal promotions and related short term, fast moving offers are more often promoted through PPC - since changes to organic results can take up to three months depending on site crawl rate.
With PPC advertising, there were never any certainties about how much traffic a business could expect. While the number of searches was reported (and the number of clicks), businesses never knew how good their CTR (click through ratio) really was. With this new knowledge advertisers will finally know how their search only ads are performing.
Whether the value was revealed deliberately or accidentally, it is now in the public SEM domain. What is refreshing to see is that Google is speaking at more events, becoming more open, transparent and social. With Google owning 80 per cent of the search market, it needs brand advocates and fans more than ever. I do hope this openness trend continues.
