Everyone knows that the top spot in Google’s search engine results is where you want to be. But how do the other spots compare? Is it really that big a deal to be #1 in the results instead of #2 or #3? Chitika Insights, the research arm of online advertising network Chitika, conducted a study to find out exactly how much the top position on Google was worth and how far behind the others actually were. The studies shown some amazing results.
It’s Good To Be King
The #1 position in Google was shown to generate twice as much traffic as the #2 position. With #1 driving in 34.35 percent of the traffic, being #1 equaled the amount generated by positions 2, 33, 4 and 55 combined. It was shocking to find how big of a jump the traffic volume was from #1 to #2 and when looking at the sites below #2 it was astonishing. (view the survey here)
One of the largest changes in traffic volume came from the bottom of page one in the 10th spot to the top of page two, the 11th spot. There was a 143 percent decrease from #10 (but on page one) to #11 (but on page two). Although the base traffic number was low (1.11 percent for 11th place and 2.71 percent for 10th) the results were still very dramatic.
What Does This Mean?
This basically means that (a) you want to get on the first page of Google’s search results pages and (b) you want to achieve position #1 for your targeted keywords if at all possible. With #1 holding 34.35 percent of the traffic volume and #2 holding only 16.96 percent it doesn’t make it a very tight race for traffic. Studies have shown that the first five results that come up in the search engine results for any given keyword are generally the ones most often clicked. Most people do not ever leave that first page, so #11 is in serious danger of being invisible to its targeted market.
How To Get Better Results
Follow the guidelines set forth by Google for SEO and constantly update your site with new, unique and compelling content. Be sure that you steer away from any Black Hat methods for SEO and, of course, have something on your site that people want, that they can use, or at the very least that will entertain them.;
