SEO 101

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

Within the last year, all the major search engines have begun returning blended results for some searches. For these searches, specialized search result types such as news, images and videos appear along the regular web pages on the search result page.

The following study shows which results are clicked most often:

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.

News items are the most clicked result type within blended search results.

The study also revealed some trends that show that the first page of the search results is getting more important:

68% of search engine users click results on the first page of search results.
Only 8% of search engine users review more than the first three pages prior to clicking on a result.
49% of search engine users who continue their search when not finding what they are looking for, change and/or re-launch their search after reviewing just the first page of search results.
37% of online users associate appearance at the top of search results with a company’s leadership within its industry or category.

This clearly shows that it is very important to be listed on the first page of the search results. If your website cannot be found in the top 10 results for your keywords, then you need to pay attention to the optimization on the site.

In addition to getting top 10 rankings, it is also important that your web pages attract clicks. Make sure your web page titles are compelling and that the descriptions attract the attention of viewers and interest them enough to want to click on the link to your site.

Your website must be found in the top 10 results and it must also be attractive enough so that people click on it. If your website is not listed on the first result pages you stand to lose a large chunk of viewers who could be potential customers.