Have you ever wondered how important page ranking is for any online business?
Maybe you simply don’t accept the importance and validity of search engine optimisation. Well, if you’re a doubting Thomas, then a new study by online ad network, Chitika, may well force you to change your mind. The study re-enforces what many marketers have known for some considerable time, and that is that page ranking on search engines is paramount. The higher you rank, the higher your click through rate and inevitably the more conversions you’ll get. Who said SEO was no longer important?
So what revelations did the study throw up?
Well, first off a number one ranking on page 1 of Google will garner 33% of all organic search traffic. Ranking second on page 1 will bring 18% of search traffic and so on down the line as percentages drop off. Those statistics may not come as a great surprise to many involved in the internet marketing business. They simply re-enforce earlier figures that were floating around in 2010. What may come as a surprise is just how quickly the percentages degrade as you head down the page lists. Many believed that a page 2 ranking was quite a decent showing by and large. But Chitika’s study confirms that a page 1 ranking gathers 92% of all search traffic. Moreover search results drop off by 95% for page 2 listings: so ending up on page 2 of Google’s search results isn’t quite the success many believed it to be.
This is the second study that Chitika has carried out.
The 2010 survey came to roughly the same conclusion, and that was that if you want to run the most successful online business then you really have to focus on search engine optimisation. You still obviously have to produce a good product that consumers want to buy, but you have to make every effort to ensure that all of your potential customers know about it, and that’s where SEO plays a crucial part. According to Chitika:
“While being the number one result on a Google search results page is obviously important, these numbers show just how big of an advantage websites of this type have over any competitors listed below them. The importance of SEO for online business is seemingly quantified by these latest statistics, which, judging by their similarity to those observed as part of the 2010 study, are not likely to change significantly in the near future.”
