Why Organic Search Is Growing & Paid Search Is Declining!
Why is Organic Search Traffic Is Growing and Paid or Sponsored Search traffic Is Declining! I want to show you some statistics that were recently uncovered that you may find shocking. Despite what you may have been told, research and testing reveals that sponsored search results (i.e. Google
AdWords Ads) only receive 4 – 5% of the total available clicks! In
other words, if 100 people perform a search on Google, only 5 will click on a paid listing! The top 2 or 3 paid listings that appear above the organic listings receive only 2 – 3% of the available
clicks. If you’re stuck on the side bar, you’ll
be lucky if you get 1 – 2% click-through rates. If
you have an active AdWords account, none of this should come as a surprise. Google’s own tools warn you of their pathetically-low click-through rates. So as it stands, even if you’re a master at Pay-Per-Click, you’ll still only get 2 – 3%
of the available clicks on average. So if people aren’t
clicking on the sponsored and paid listings in Google, where are all the clicks going? Here's a screenshot that illustrates how the clicks are distributed on any given search engine results page.
The first ORGANIC (i.e. non-sponsored listing) receives 41 – 45% of the available traffic,
and the second ORGANIC result receives 11 – 18% of the available traffic, that's 10 – 20 TIMES the amount of clicks
as the first PAID listing. Just to put that into perspective,
if you’re getting 100 clicks a day from Google AdWords, your competitor who’s ranking #1 organically is getting
1000 – 2000 clicks a day and their traffic (Unlike Yours) is FREE ! But what about all your competitors who are listed lower down on the page, you’re at least beating
them, right? Not necessarily, while SEO experts disagree
somewhat on the exact breakdown of clicks, the screenshot below illustrates the general consensus based on research.
So based on these numbers, the person sitting at result #3 is still getting 2X – 3X more
traffic than you. And the competitors in positions 4 – 9 are getting as much traffic as you…even you hold the
#1 spot in the paid results!
And again, none of them are paying for
that traffic!
But it wasn’t always like this, when
Google AdWords first came on the scene, clicks on the sponsored links were through the roof! In fact, most Google users didn’t know there was a difference between the organic listings on the left
and the paid listings on the right, so by some estimates the paid listings received as much as 30% of the clicks.
By 2008 this number had dropped to 10.5% according to Enquisite.com (see chart on the left, below)
And the decline continues, today the percentages are even lower, with the sponsored (i.e. “Paid)
results generating just 4 – 5% of the total clicks on the page, and while experts may argue over the exact percentages,
none of that really matters. What does matter is that the
percentage of clicks to sponsored search listings are on a decline, and few expect it to rebound. Hopefully by now, it is plain to see that every day, more and more Google users are shifting their focus
away from PPC and toward organic search. One additional
thought you should also keep in mind is that, with EVERY keyword you would like to have your business website optimized for
using sponsored or paid ads on Google, it is an additional cost to your company. If you are trying to, and should be, optimizing your website for multiple keywords and keyword phrases (sometimes
in the 100's) it is easy to see how costly this method could become, not to mention the low click through rates. With search engine optimization your business website can be optimized for as many keywords or keyword phrases
as you would like each, at no additional cost per click. Perhaps
now it is clear to you why PPC is declining and Search Engine Marketing is the more cost effective way to go. Page 1 SEO Services is here to help you take advatanage of these changing trends and to help you put your
business website in front of the customers that you want to reach.
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