Visitors and Conversions
The whole purpose in SEO is to drive visitors to a website, and more importantly to convert those visitors into genuine sales for our clients. Just getting a website on to the front page of Google generally isn’t enough to bring a profitable return on investment. The higher a website is on the front page the more visitors it will get, and the more chance of conversion there is.
The above statistics were carried out by AOL in 2006 and are an interesting guide as to what a certain position on the front page of Google can yield in regards to visitors. As is shown the number 1 website on the front page receives clicks from 42.13% of the people searching. The number2 receives 11.9%, and the bottom position only receives 2.99%. The above figures are only a guide as each search and industry etc is going to be different, but it tells us that it is definitely more profitable the higher up the front page a website is.
Eye tracking study
Shown below are the results from an eye tracking study. Notice how the attention is focused mainly on the upper left corner of the search results, and the attention drops off further down the page. Also interesting is how the ads in the right column get very little attention. Taking note of statistics like these and using them in our SEO campaigns is a large part of what we do for our clients.