The Art of SEO - Paolo Albera

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http://amzn.to/2z437AU

/ theory / in / prac t ice

Mastering Search Engine Optimization

Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, and Jessie C. Stricchiola

The Art of SEO

“Written by some of the top minds in SEO!”— Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief, SearchEngineLand.com

and producer, SMX: Search Marketing Expo

3rd Edition

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxiii

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxv

1 Search: Reflecting Consciousness and ConnectingCommerce. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41The Mission of Search Engines 42

The Market Share of Search Engines 43

The Human Goals of Searching 43

Who Searches and What Do They Search For? 44

Determining Searcher Intent: A Challenge for SearchMarketers and Search Engines 45

Navigational Queries 46

Informational Queries 46

Transactional Queries 47

Adaptive Search 48

Searcher Intent 49

How People Search 51

How Search Engines Drive Ecommerce 55

The Mobile Shift 56

The History of Eye Tracking: How Users Scan ResultsPages 56

Click Tracking: How Users Click on Results (OrganicVersus Paid) 62

Distribution of Search Results and Traffic 63

Conclusion 66

2 Search Engine Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67Understanding Search Engine Results 68

Understanding the Layout of Search Results Pages 68

Understanding How Vertical Results Fit into the SERPs 72

Google’s Knowledge Graph 77

xvii

Algorithm-Based Ranking Systems: Crawling, Indexing,and Ranking 78

Crawling and Indexing 78

Retrieval and Ranking 80

Evaluating Content on a Web Page 82

Understanding What Content Search Engines Can“See” on a Web Page 83

Determining Searcher Intent and Delivering Relevant,Fresh Content 92

Document Analysis and Semantic Connectivity 92

Content Quality and User Engagement 96

Link Analysis 98

Evaluating Social Media Signals 100

Problem Words, Disambiguation, and Diversity 100

Why These Algorithms Sometimes Fail 103

The Knowledge Graph 103

Analyzing Ranking Factors 108

Negative Ranking Factors 109

Other Ranking Factors 110

Using Advanced Search Techniques 111

Advanced Google Search Operators 111

Bing Advanced Search Operators 119

More Advanced Search Operator Techniques 120

Vertical Search Engines 122

Vertical Search from the Major Search Engines 123

Universal Search/Blended Search 130

Country-Specific Search Engines 132

Optimizing for Specific Countries 133

Conclusion 134

3 SEO Planning: Customizing Your Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . 135Strategic Goals SEO Practitioners Can Fulfill 136

Visibility (Branding) 136

Website Traffic 137

High Return on Investment 137

Every SEO Strategy Should Be Customized 138

Understanding Search Engine Traffic and Visitor Intent 139

Developing an SEO Plan Prior to Site Development 140

Business Factors That Impact Your SEO Strategy 140

CONTENTSxviii

Understanding Your Audience and Finding Your Niche 141

Mapping Your Products and Services 141

Understanding That Content Is King 142

Segmenting Your Site’s Audience 143

Understanding Context: Market Competitiveness 145

SEO for Raw Traffic 146

SEO for Ecommerce Sales 147

SEO for Mindshare and Branding 147

SEO for Lead Generation and Direct Marketing 148

SEO for Reputation Management 149

SEO for Ideological Influence 150

Advanced Methods for Planning and Evaluation 151

SWOT Analysis 151

SWOT Guidelines 152

SMART Objectives 154

Conclusion 155

4 SEO Implementation: First Stages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157The Importance of Planning 157

Identifying the Site Development Process and Players 158

Development Platform and Information Architecture 158

Technology Decisions 159

Structural Decisions 161

Mobile Sites and Mobile Apps 164

Single-Page Applications 164

Auditing an Existing Site to Identify SEO Problems 166

Elements of an Audit 166

The Importance of Keyword Reviews 171

Keyword Cannibalization 172

Example: Fixing an Internal Linking Problem 174

Server and Hosting Issues 176

Identifying Current Server Statistics Software andGaining Access 177

Web Analytics 177

Log file Tracking 178

Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools 178

Determining Top Competitors 179

Identifying Spam 179

xixCONTENTS

Seeking the Best 180

Uncovering Their Secrets 181

Assessing Historical Progress 183

Timeline of Site Changes 183

Types of Site Changes That Can Affect SEO 185

Previous SEO Work 186

Benchmarking Current Indexing Status 186

Benchmarking Organic Rankings 188

Benchmarking Current Traffic Sources and Volume 189

Leveraging Business Assets for SEO 190

Other Domains You Own/Control 190

Relationships On and Off the Web 190

Content or Data You’ve Never Put Online 190

Customers Who Have Had a Positive Experience 191

Followers, Friends, and Fans 191

Conclusion 191

5 Keyword Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193The Theory Behind Keyword Research 193

Thinking Strategically 194

Understanding the Long Tail of the Keyword DemandCurve 194

Understanding the Impact of Google Hummingbird 195

Understanding Keyword “Not Provided” and Co-Occurrence Analysis 198

Traditional Approaches: Domain Expertise and SiteContent Analysis 199

Including Competitive Analysis 201

Integrating Keyword Research, Co-OccurrenceAnalysis, and Knowledge of User Intent 201

Keyword Research Options 202

Keyword Research Data from Search Engines 203

Keyword Research Data from Tools 207

Keyword Research Data Analysis 244

Ad Campaign Runs and Third-Party Search Data 247

Landing Page Optimization 248

Leveraging the Long Tail of Keyword Demand 249

Extracting Terms from Relevant Web Pages 250

Mining Keyword Research Tools 250

CONTENTSxx

Identifying Long-Tail Patterns 251

Applying Editorial Content Strategies for Long-TailTargeting 253

Applying User-Generated Content Strategies for Long-Tail Targeting 254

Trending, Seasonality, and Seasonal Fluctuations inKeyword Demand 255

Conclusion 258

6 Developing an SEO-Friendly Website. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259Making Your Site Accessible to Search Engines 259

Indexable Content 260

Spiderable Link Structures 260

XML Sitemaps 262

Creating an Optimal Information Architecture 267

The Importance of a Logical, Category-Based Flow 267

Site Architecture Design Principles 271

Flat Versus Deep Architecture 274

Search-Friendly Site Navigation 277

Root Domains, Subdomains, and Microsites 285

When to Use a Subfolder 287

When to Use a Subdomain 288

When to Use a Separate Root Domain 288

Microsites 289

When to Use a TLD Other Than .com 291

Optimization of Domain Names/URLs 292

Optimizing Domains 293

Picking the Right URLs 295

Mobile Friendliness 297

Keyword Targeting 297

HTML <title> Tags 299

Meta Description Tags 302

Heading Tags 303

Document Text 305

Image Filenames and alt Attributes 308

Boldface Text 309

Keyword Cannibalization 309

Keyword Targeting in Content Management Systemsand Automatically Generated Content 310

xxiCONTENTS

Effective Keyword Targeting by Content Creators 310

Long-Tail Keyword Targeting 311

Content Optimization 313

Content Structure 313

CSS and Semantic Markup 315

Content Uniqueness and Depth 318

Content Themes 320

Duplicate Content Issues 320

Consequences of Duplicate Content 322

How Search Engines Identify Duplicate Content 323

Copyright Infringement 326

How to Avoid Duplicate Content on Your Own Site 328

Controlling Content with Cookies and Session IDs 330

What’s a Cookie? 330

What Are Session IDs? 331

How Do Search Engines Interpret Cookies and SessionIDs? 333

Why Would You Want to Use Cookies or Session IDs toControl Search Engine Access? 333

Content Delivery and Search Spider Control 334

Cloaking and Segmenting Content Delivery 334

Showing Different Content to Engines and Visitors 336

Displaying Different Content to Search Engines VersusVisitors 338

Redirects 353

Why and When to Redirect 353

Good and Bad Redirects 353

Methods for URL Redirecting and Rewriting 354

How to Redirect a Home Page Index File WithoutLooping 360

Content Management System Issues 362

CMS Selection 367

Third-Party CMS Add-Ons 368

Flash Coding Best Practices 370

Best Practices for Multilanguage/Country Targeting 375

How to Target a Specific Country 376

Problems with Using Your Existing Domain 376

The Two Major Approaches 377

Multiple-Language Issues 377

CONTENTSxxii

Semantic Search 381

Google’s Hummingbird 382

Semantic Search and SEO 382

Entities and Semantic Search 383

Structured Data 384

Schema.org 386

Overview 388

How to Use Schema.org 390

Summary 400

Google Authorship and Author Authority 400

A Brief History of Google Authorship 401

Why Did Google End Support for rel=“author”? 402

Is Author Authority Dead for Google? 403

Google+ Authors in Personalized Search 404

The Future of Author Authority at Google 404

Author Authority 405

Google’s Publisher Tag 407

Google’s Knowledge Graph and the Knowledge Vault 410

Overview of Changes in Search Complexity 410

Fair Use? 414

How the Knowledge Vault Works 415

The Future of the Knowledge Vault 417

Conclusion 418

7 Content Marketing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419How Links Historically Influenced Search Engine

Rankings 421

The Original PageRank Algorithm 421

Additional Factors That Influence Link Value 426

How Search Engines Use Links 430

Further Refining How Search Engines Judge Links 431

Additional Link Evaluation Criteria 431

How Search Engines Determine a Link’s Value 438

Creating Content That Attracts Links 440

How Are Links Earned? 440

How Can Sites Approach Getting Links? 440

Introduction to Content Marketing 441

Using Content to Attract Links 442

xxiiiCONTENTS

Understanding Content Marketing Basics 443

Customizing Your Content Types to Your Audience 444

Implementing Content Marketing Strategies 445

Developing Content That Works 446

Brainstorming Content Ideas and Being Creative 446

Speedstorming 449

Getting Creative Help 449

Repurposing Content 450

Understanding What Makes Content High Quality 451

Integrating Emotional Triggers, Titles, and Images 451

Leveraging the Power of Memes 455

Measuring Engagement in Content Marketing 459

Choosing the Right Content Marketing Strategy 462

Identifying Types of Sites That Might Link to a Site LikeYours 462

Placing a Value on the Sites 462

Segmenting Your Audience, Identifying Personas, andTargeting Content 466

Putting It All Together 468

Types of Content Marketing Campaigns 470

Guest Posting 470

Content Syndication 475

Link-Worthy or Viral Content 477

User-Generated Content 479

Building an Audience 480

Get to Know Other People’s Audiences 480

Leverage Influencers and Influencer Marketing 486

Get Active in Social Media 493

Build Offline Relationships 496

Relationships and Outreach 497

Building Relationships with Influencers 497

Creating a Value Proposition for a Relationship 512

Using Direct Email Pitches Effectively 512

Other Ways to Earn Links 513

Web Directories 513

Manual Social Media Link Creation 514

Gray Hat/Black Hat 515

Awards and Badges 520

Customer Discount/Incentives 520

CONTENTSxxiv

How Search Engines Fight Link Spam 521

Google’s Penguin Algorithm 521

Other Algorithmic Approaches to Fighting Link Spam 521

Negative Link Building 523

Unnatural Links Messages 524

Other Search Engine Courses of Action 524

Social Networking for Links 525

Blogging for Links 525

Leveraging Major Social Media Platforms 526

Using Social Media Networking Effectively: Dos andDon’ts 527

Using YouTube Successfully for Content Marketing 534

Implementing Guest Posting Successfully 536

Putting It All Together 537

Conclusion 537

8 How Social Media and User Data Play a Role in SearchResults and Rankings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539Correlation Between Social Signals and Google Rankings 540

What Is the Value of Social Signals? 541

Bing’s Experiments with Social Signals 543

Does Google Use Facebook as a Ranking Signal? 546

Does Google Use Twitter as a Ranking Signal? 550

Does Google Use Google+ as a Ranking Signal? 553

Google+ Personalization 553

Google+ Posts in the Search Results 555

Google+ Brand Pages in the Search Results 556

Google+ Impact on Nonpersonalized Rankings ofContent 557

Study on Google+ as a Ranking Factor 558

How Might Google Use Google+ as a Ranking Factor? 560

The Indirect Influence of Social Media Marketing 561

Monitoring, Measuring, and Improving Social MediaMarketing: Best Practices 564

Claiming Key Profiles 565

Deciding on a New Social Network 566

Tracking Social Media 568

User Engagement as a Measure of Search Quality 584

How Google and Bing Collect Engagement Metrics 585

xxvCONTENTS

Potential User Engagement Signals 586

Voting Mechanisms 588

Document Analysis 588

Poor Editorial Quality 589

Reading Level 589

Keyword Stuffing/Lack of Synonyms 591

Ad Density and Offensive Ads 591

Sameness 591

Page Speed 592

Optimizing User Experience to Improve SEO 592

Step 1: Build a Survey 592

Step 2: Send It to Your Customers/Potential Customers 593

Step 3: Record Responses and Leverage Them to BuildWhat the People Want 593

Additional Social Media Resources 593

Conclusion 594

9 Panda, Penguin, and Penalties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595Diagnosing the Cause of a Traffic Loss 596

Summary of Major Google Algorithms 597

Panda 598

Target Areas of Panda 601

Importance of Diversity in Rankings 604

Role of Authority in Rankings 606

Impact of Any Weak Content on Rankings 606

Path to Recovery 607

Penguin 610

Target Areas of Penguin 611

Path to Recovery 612

Penalties 612

Types of Manual Penalties 614

Links Google Does Not Like 620

Link Cleanup Process 627

Sources of Data 628

Using Tools 628

The Link Removal Process 631

Conclusion 634

CONTENTSxxvi

10 Mobile, Local, and Vertical SEO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635The Mobile Landscape 635

SEO for Mobile 636

App SEO: Deep Linking and Indexing for Mobile Search 641

App Deep Linking 641

App Indexing 643

Optimizing for Vertical Search 643

Universal Search = Blended Search 644

The Opportunity Unleashed 647

Optimizing for Local Search 648

Local Listing Submissions 650

Google My Business 653

Google Knowledge Graph Carousel 655

Bing Places for Business 659

Yahoo! Local 659

Business Website Optimization for Local Search 660

Optimizing for Image Search 663

Image Optimization Tips 664

Optimizing for Google Shopping Search 668

Submitting a Product Feed 669

Optimizing a Product Feed 670

Promoting Products in AdWords 672

Reporting Results of Shopping Ads 673

Optimizing for Blog Search 673

Structural Blog Optimizations 674

Optimizing Your Anchor Text 675

Sticky Posts 675

Author Profile Pages 675

Links 676

Optimizing for News Search: Google News 677

Acceptance Criteria 679

Application Process 679

Paywalls and Subscription Sites 679

Google News Publisher Center 680

Technical Requirements 682

Thumbnail Images in Google News 685

Recrawling 686

Google News Sitemaps 686

xxviiCONTENTS

Videos in Google News 692

Editor’s Picks 693

Optimizing for Video/Multimedia Search 694

Video SEO for YouTube 695

Video SEO for Google 706

Conclusion 708

11 Tracking Results and Measuring Success. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709Why Measuring Success Is Essential to the SEO Process 710

The Tracking Cycle: Produce, Launch, Measure, Refine 711

Establishing a Proper Baseline 713

Using Analytics as a Business Case for SEO 714

Measuring Search Traffic 714

Basic Overview 715

Selecting the Right Analytics Package 715

Extracting Valuable SEO Data in Web Analytics 717

Number of pages getting search traffic 721

Segmenting Search Traffic 722

Referring Sites 722

Using Custom Analytics Dashboards 724

Taking a Deeper Look at Action Tracking 725

Separating the Analytics Wheat from the Chaff 728

Tying SEO to Conversion and ROI 729

Managing Attribution 732

Setting Up Analytics Software to Track Conversions 733

Segmenting Campaigns and SEO Efforts by ConversionRate 736

Increasing Conversion 737

Determining Project ROI 740

Competitive and Diagnostic Search Metrics 742

Search Engine and Competitive Metrics 742

Site Indexing Data 742

Link-Based Tracking of Content Marketing 747

Ranking 763

Shelf space 764

SEO Platforms 765

Crawl Errors 766

Tracking the Blogosphere 772

CONTENTSxxviii

Tracking Your Blog(s) 773

Search Engine Robot Traffic Analysis 775

Web Traffic Comparison 777

Temporal Link Growth Measurements 783

Key Performance Indicators for Long-Tail SEO 787

Duplicate Content 788

Other Third-Party Tools 789

MozBar 789

SEO Quake 790

SEO for Firefox 790

SpyFu 790

SEMrush 792

Rio SEO Search Analytics 792

Rio SEO Website Optimizer 793

Searchmetrics Essentials 793

Conclusion 794

12 Domain Changes, Redesigns, and Troubleshooting. . . . . 795The Basics of Moving Content 795

Large-Scale Content Moves 796

Mapping Content Moves 797

Expectations for Content Moves 799

Maintaining Search Engine Visibility During and After aSite Redesign 801

Maintaining Search Engine Visibility During and AfterDomain Name Changes 802

Unique Challenges of Domain Name Changes 802

Pre-Move Preparations 803

Changing Servers 804

Monitoring After Your Server Move 805

Hidden Content 806

Identifying Content That Search Engines Don’t See 806

Identifying the Cause of Non-Spidering 807

Identifying Hidden Content That May Be Viewed asSpam 810

Spam Filtering and Penalties 812

Low-Quality Domains and Spam Sites 815

Spam Reports 818

Duplicate Content 818

xxixCONTENTS

Basic Rules for Spam-Free SEO 820

Search Engine Penalties and Reconsideration Requests 821

Content Theft 821

Changing SEO Vendors or Staff Members 824

Potential Problems with SEO Staff Changes 824

SEO Documentation for Actions and Progress 825

SEO Documentation for Rapid Training 825

Cleanup and Auditing 826

Conclusion 826

13 SEO Education and Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 827SEO Research and Search Performance Analysis 827

SEO Resources 827

SEO Testing 829

Analysis of Top-Ranking Sites and Pages 833

Analysis of Algorithmic Differentiation Across Enginesand Search Types 834

The Importance of Experience 836

Competitive Analysis 836

Content Analysis 836

Internal Link Structure and Site Architecture 837

External Link Attraction Analysis 837

What Is Their SEO Strategy? 838

Competitive Analysis Summary 839

Using Competitive Link Analysis Tools 839

Competitive Analysis for Those with a Big Budget 841

Using Search Engine–Supplied SEO Tools 841

Search Engine Tools for Webmasters 841

The SEO Industry on the Web 857

Blogs 857

SEO News Outlets, Communities, and Forums 859

Communities in Social Networks 860

Participation in Conferences and Organizations 861

Conclusion 863

14 SEO Support: In-House, External, or Both?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 865The Business of SEO 865

Understand Your Market Opportunity 866

CONTENTSxxx

Get Buy-In Across the Organization 867

Lay the Groundwork 867

Motivate Resources That Don’t Share Your Goals toHelp You 868

Progress Through the Stages of SEO Maturity 869

Building an SEO team 870

Using In-House SEO Talent Versus Outsourced Support:Dynamics and Challenges 871

The Value of In-House SEO 871

The Value of Outsourced SEO Support 871

The Case for Working with an Outside Expert 872

How to Best Leverage Outside Help 873

How to Implement Your Expert’s Recommendations 874

How to Integrate SEO Knowledge in the Organization 875

The Impact of Site Complexity on SEO Workload 876

Solutions for Small Organizations 878

Developing the In-House SEO Specialist 878

Making the Most of Limited Resources or Budgets 879

Solutions for Large Organizations 882

Contracting for Specialist Knowledge and Experience 884

Applying SEO Recommendations Intelligently 884

Hiring SEO Talent 885

Selecting the Right SEO Person 886

Pitching the Person 886

Making the Offer 888

Selecting an SEO Firm/Consultant 888

Getting the Process Started 889

Preparing a Request for Proposal 890

Communicating with Candidate SEO Firms 895

Making the Decision 896

Mixing In-House SEO with Outside SEO Help 898

Building a Culture of SEO into Your Organization 899

Conclusion 900

15 An Evolving Art Form: The Future of SEO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 901The Ongoing Evolution of Search 903

The Growth of Search Complexity 903

Google’s Dominance 908

More Searchable Content and Content Types 911

xxxiCONTENTS

Engines Will Make Crawling Improvements 911

Engines Are Getting New Content Sources 912

Multimedia Is Becoming Indexable 913

More Personalized, Localized, and User-InfluencedSearch 915

User Intent 915

User Interactions 916

New Search Patterns 916

Growing Reliance on the Cloud 917

Increasing Importance of Local, Mobile, and Voice Search 918

Local Search 918

Mobile Search 919

Voice Recognition Search 920

Increased Market Saturation and Competition 921

SEO as an Enduring Art Form 923

The Future of Semantic Search and the Knowledge Graph924

Conclusion 928

Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 929

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 949

CONTENTSxxxii

1 comScore, “comScore Releases April 2014 U.S. Search Engine Rankings,” May 16, 2014, http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Market-Rankings/comScore-Releases-April-2014-US-Search-Engine-Rankings.

2 Danny Sullivan, “Twitter: Renewed Focus On SEO Generated 10 Times More Visitors,” November12, 2014, http://searchengineland.com/twitter-seo-more-visitors-208160.

C H A P T E R O N E

Search:Reflecting Consciousness and

Connecting CommerceSearch has become integrated into the fabric of our society. With more than 197.9 bil-

lion searches performed worldwide each month as of April 2014, approximately 6.6

billion web searches are performed every day. This means that on average about 7,500

searches are performed every single second of every day.1 In addition, users have

grown to expect that the responses to their search queries will be returned in less than

one second.

If you have ever come across the various “SEO is dead” claims that make the rounds

periodically in the digital marketing world, rest assured: SEO is both alive and well—

and has not, as many feared, been “killed” by social media marketing as a driver of

web traffic. In fact, in November 2014, Twitter announced that by renewing its focus

on SEO, it increased the number of logged-out visitors coming to the site tenfold—

from 7.5 million to 75 million visitors per month.2.

The high demand for search continues because people can now obtain in mere seconds

information that 20 years ago would have required a trip to the library, the use of a

card catalog and the Dewey Decimal System, and a physical search through halls of

printed volumes—a process that could easily have consumed two hours or more.

Through the new channel of search, people can conduct many of their shopping,

41

banking, and social transactions online—something that has changed the way our

global population lives and interacts.

This dramatic shift in behavior represents what investors like to label a disruptive

event—an event that has changed something in a fundamental way. Search engines

have been at the center of this disruptive event, and having a business’s website con-

tent appear prominently in the search engines when people are looking for the ser-

vice, product, or resource that business provides is critical to its survival. As is the case

with most paths to success, obtaining such prime search result real estate is not a sim-

ple matter, but it is one that this book aims to deconstruct and demystify as we exam-

ine, explain, and explore the ever-changing art of search engine optimization (SEO).

The Mission of Search EnginesWeb searchers are free to use any of the many available search engines to find what

they are seeking, so the burden is on the search engines to develop a relevant, fast,

and fresh search experience. For the most part, search engines accomplish this by

being perceived as having the most relevant results and delivering them the fastest, as

users will go to the search engine they think will get them the answers they want in

the least amount of time.

As a result, search engines invest a tremendous amount of time, energy, and capital in

improving their relevance. This includes performing extensive studies of user respon-

ses to their search results, comparing their results against those of other search

engines, conducting eye-tracking and click-through rate studies (discussed later in this

chapter), and constructing PR and marketing campaigns.

Search engines generate revenue primarily through paid advertising. The great major-

ity of this revenue comes from a pay-per-click (or cost-per-click) model, in which the

advertisers pay only for users who click on their ads. Because the search engines’ suc-

cess depends so greatly on the relevance of their search results, manipulations of

search engine rankings that result in nonrelevant results (generally referred to as

spam) are dealt with very seriously. Each major search engine employs a team of peo-

ple who focus solely on finding and eliminating spam from their search results (gener-

ally referred to as “web spam” teams). This matters to SEO professionals because they

need to be careful that the tactics they employ will not be considered spam by the

search engines, as this would carry the risk of incurring penalties for the websites they

work on.

CHAPTER ONE: SEARCH: REFLECTING CONSCIOUSNESS AND CONNECTING COMMERCE42

The Market Share of Search EnginesFigure 1-1 shows the U.S. market share for search engines in June 2015, according to

comScore. As you can see, Google is the dominant search engine on the Web in the

United States.

Figure 1-1. Search engine market share (June 2015)

In many European countries, the disparity is even greater. However, in some markets,

Google is not dominant. In China, for instance, Baidu is the leading search engine. The

fact remains, however, that in most world markets, a heavy focus on Google is a smart

strategy for SEO.

The Human Goals of SearchingThe basic goal of a human searcher is to obtain information relevant to a specific set of

keywords and/or phrases entered into a search field, also known as a query. A

searcher may formulate the query as a question, but the vast majority of searches are

performed by users simply entering word combinations—leaving the search engines to

do the work of determining “intent.” One of the most important elements to building

an SEO strategy for a website is developing a thorough understanding of the psychol-

ogy of your target audience, and how they use words and concepts to obtain informa-

tion about the services and/or products you provide. Once you understand how the

average searcher—and, more specifically, your target market—utilizes query-based

search engines, you can more effectively reach and keep those users.

Search engine usage has evolved over the years, but the primary principles of conduct-

ing a search remain largely unchanged. Most search engine use consists of the follow-

ing steps:

THE MARKET SHARE OF SEARCH ENGINES 43

1. Users experience the need for information. They may be looking for information

on a specific website, and they will search for that website (a navigational query);

they might want to buy something (a transactional query); or they might want to

learn something (an informational query). We will discuss this in more detail in

the following section.

2. Users formulate that need using a string of words and phrases (comprising the

query). Most people formulate their queries in one to three words, though as

users are becoming more web savvy, they may use longer queries to generate

more specific results more quickly. Table 1-1 gives a more detailed look at the per-

centages of searches per query length as of April 2014, the most recent comScore

study on this aspect of search.

3. Users execute the query, check the results, and if they seek additional informa-

tion, will try a refined query.

Table 1-1. Searches by query length (comScore, April 2014 data)

Words Percent of searches

1 25.8%

2 22.8%

3 18.7%

4 13.2%

5+ 19.5%

When this process results in the satisfactory completion of a task, a positive experience

is created for the user, the search engine, and the site providing the information or

result.

Who Searches and What Do They Search For?comScore reported that the number of search queries performed worldwide on the

Web was approximately 197.9 billion across all search engines in April 2014.

comScore data also shows over 1.7 billion people were using a search engine on a

given day in that month. Search engine users in the United States were slightly more

likely to be women than men (50.3% versus 49.7%). According to comScore, about

two-thirds of U.S. Internet users had an income of $40,000 or more (Table 1-2).

Table 1-2. Internet users by household income (May 2015)

U.S. household income Internet users

Less than $25,000 33,730 (13.2%)

$25,000–$39,999 32,941 (12.9%)


U.S. household income Internet users

$40,000–$59,999 42,376 (16.5%)

$60,000–$74,999 27,861 (10.9%)

$75,000–$99,999 38,166 (14.9%)

$100,000 or more 81,015 (31.6%)

You can find additional data from studies, surveys, and white papers on Search Engine

Land’s Search Behavior page.

All of this research data leads us to some important conclusions about web search and

marketing through search engines. For example:

• Search is a major source of valuable, targeted traffic.

• Google is the dominant search player in most world markets.

• Users tend to use shorter search phrases, but these are gradually getting longer,

especially for non-navigational queries.

• Search covers all types of markets.

Search is undoubtedly still one of the best and most important ways to reach consum-

ers and build a business, regardless of that business’s size, reach, or focus.

Determining Searcher Intent: A Challenge for SearchMarketers and Search EnginesGood marketers are empathetic, and smart SEO practitioners—as well as the search

engines—share the goal of providing searchers with results that are relevant to their

queries. Therefore, a crucial element to building an online marketing strategy around

SEO and organic (sometimes referred to as “natural”) search visibility is understanding

your audience and how they think about, discuss, and search for your service, prod-

uct, and brand.

Search engine marketers need to be aware that search engines are tools—resources

driven by intent toward a content destination. Using the search box is fundamentally

different from entering a URL into the browser’s address bar, clicking on a bookmark,

or clicking on a link to go to a website. Searches are performed with intent—the user

wants to find specific information, rather than just land on it by happenstance; search

is also different from browsing, or clicking around links on a web page. Because of this

specificity, search traffic is generally of higher value to marketers than these other

types of web traffic.

What follows is an examination of the different types of search queries and their cate-

gories, characteristics, and processes.

DETERMINING SEARCHER INTENT: A CHALLENGE FOR SEARCH MARKETERS AND SEARCH ENGINES 45

Navigational QueriesUsers perform navigational searches with the intent of going directly to a specific web-

site. In some cases, the user may not know the exact URL, and the search engine

serves as the “White Pages.” Figure 1-2 shows an example of a navigational query.

Figure 1-2. Navigational query

Opportunities: Pull searcher away from destination; get ancillary or investigatory traffic.

Average traffic value: Very high when searches are for the publisher’s own brand. These

types of searches tend to lead to very high conversion rates. However, these searchers

are already aware of the company brand, and some percentage of these queries may

not represent new customers. For brands other than the one being searched on, the

click-through rates will tend to be low, but this may represent an opportunity to take a

customer away from a competitor.

Informational QueriesInformational searches involve an incredibly broad range of queries. Consider the

many types of information people might look for: local weather, driving directions, a

celebrity’s recent interview, disease symptoms, self-help information, how to train for

a specific type of career...the possibilities are as endless as the human capacity for

thought. Informational searches are primarily non-transaction-oriented (although

they can include researching information about a product or service); the information

itself is the goal, and no interaction beyond clicking and reading is required for the

searcher’s query to be satisfied. Figure 1-3 shows an example of an informational

query.


Figure 1-3. Informational query

Opportunities: Brand searchers with positive impressions of your site, information, com-

pany, and so on; attract inbound links; receive attention from journalists/researchers;

potentially convert to sign up or purchase.

Average traffic value: The searcher may not be ready to buy anything just yet, or may

not even have a long-term intent to buy anything, so the value tends to be “medium”

at best. However, many of these searchers will later enter in a more targeted search,

and this represents an opportunity to capture mindshare with those potential custom-

ers. For example, informational queries that are focused on researching commercial

products or services can have high value.

Transactional QueriesTransactional searches don’t necessarily have to involve a credit card or immediate

financial transaction. Creating a Pinterest account, signing up for a free trial account at

DomainTools, or finding the best local Japanese restaurant for dinner tonight are all

transactional queries. Figure 1-4 shows an example of a transactional query.


3 Bernard J. Jansen, Danielle L. Booth, and Amanda Spink, “Determining the Informational, Navi-gational, and Transactional Intent of Web Queries,” Information Processing and Management 44(2008) 1251–1266, http://bit.ly/jansen_user_intent.

Figure 1-4. Transactional query

Opportunities: Achieve transaction (financial or other).

Average traffic value: Very high.

Research from Pennsylvania State University and the Queensland University of Tech-

nology shows that more than 80% of searches are informational in nature, and only

about 10% of searches are navigational or transactional.3

The researchers went further and developed an algorithm to automatically classify

searches by query type. When they tested the algorithm, they found that it was able to

correctly classify queries 74% of the time. The difficulty in classifying the remaining

queries was vague user intent—that is, the queries could have multiple meanings.

Adaptive SearchThe search engines also look at sequences of search queries to determine intent. This

was confirmed in coauthor Eric Enge’s interview with Jack Menzel, Product Manage-

ment Director for Google Search. You can verify this by trying search sequences such

as a search on Rome followed by a search on hotels.

Normally, a search on hotels would not include results for hotels in Rome, but when

the preceding query was for Rome, some results for hotels in Rome will be included.

Keeping track of users’ previous search queries and taking them into account when

determining which results to return for a new query—known as adaptive search—is

intended to help the search engines get a better sense of a user’s intent. The search

engines need to do this with care: excessive changes to the results they return based


on recent query history are likely to lead to problems, so usually these types of

changes are fairly limited in scope. Nonetheless, it is useful to be aware of the types of

sequences of searches that users go through in their quest for information.

Searcher IntentWhen you are building keyword research charts for clients or on your own sites, it can

be incredibly valuable to determine the intent of each of your primary keywords.

Table 1-3 shows some examples.

Table 1-3. Sample search queries and intent

Term Queries Intent Monetary value

Beijing Airport 980 Nav Low

Hotels in Xi’an 2,644 Info Mid

7-Day China tour package 127 Trans High

Sichuan jellyfish recipe 53 Info Low

This type of analysis can help you determine where to place ads and where to concen-

trate content and links.

Hopefully, this data can help you to think carefully about how to serve different kinds

of searchers based on their individual intents, and how to concentrate your efforts in

the best possible areas.

Although informational queries are less likely to immediately convert into sales, this

does not mean you should forgo pursuing rankings on these queries; getting your

informative content in front of users seeking information can be incredibly valuable,

and can turn users into potential customers. If you are able to build a relationship with

users who find your site after an informational query, they may be more likely to

come to you to make a related purchase at a later date, and they may also decide to

share your information with others via their own website, or through social media

engagement—an indirect but potentially more valuable result than converting the sin-

gle user into a paying customer.

One problem in search is that when most searchers formulate their search queries,

their input is limited to just a handful of words (generally one to four). Because most

people don’t have a keen understanding of how search engines work, they often pro-

vide queries that are too general or that are presented in a way that does not provide

the search engine (or the marketer) with what it needs to determine, with 100% accu-

racy 100% of the time, their specific intent. Additionally, search engine users may not

have a specific intent for an individual search query beyond “curiosity” about a

general trending topic, or subject matter. While this poses potential difficulty in deliv-

ering relevant results, it also poses great opportunity to capture the mind of someone


who may not know what he is looking for, specifically, but who takes an interest in

the subsequent variety of results the search engine (and search marketers) deliver in

response.

These types of general queries are important to most businesses because they often get

the brand and site on the searcher’s radar, and this initiates the process of building

trust with the user. Over time, the user will move on to more specific searches that are

more transactional or navigational in nature.

If, for instance, companies buying pay-per-click (PPC) search ads bought only the

high-converting navigational and transactional terms and left the informational ones

to competitors, they would lose market share to those competitors. Over the course of

several days, a searcher may start with digital cameras, hone in on Olympus OMD, and

then ultimately buy from the store that showed up in her search for digital cameras and

pointed her in the direction of the Olympus OMD model.

Given the general nature of how query sessions start, though, determining intent is

quite difficult, and it can result in searches being performed where the user does not

find what he wants—even after multiple tries. A July 2013 study conducted by Fore-

See for the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) found that 77% of Google

users and 76% of Bing users were satisfied with their experiences.

While 77% satisfaction is an amazing accomplishment given the complexity of build-

ing a search engine, this study still showed that more than 22% of users were not sat-

isfied with their search results; additionally, these numbers represent the lowest levels

of customer satisfaction with search engines since 2003, and could reflect users’ dissat-

isfaction with the number of ads that are infiltrating search engine results pages (SERPs).

Greg Sterling of Search Engine Land provides a broad analysis of these issues (for the

full discussion, see “Google Gets Lowest Score Ever in Customer Satisfaction Survey”).

It will be interesting to see how these satisfaction numbers evolve over time. The

important takeaway here is that in all instances, it is still difficult to determine exactly

a searcher’s intent; and when the searcher’s intent is broad, there is ample opportunity

to leverage your content assets with SEO.

As an SEO practitioner, you should be aware that some of the visitors that you succeed

in attracting to your site may have arrived for the wrong reasons (i.e., they were really

looking for something else), and these visitors are not likely to help your business

goals. Part of your task as an SEO is to maintain a high level of relevance in the con-

tent placed on the pages you manage, to help minimize this level of waste—while still

attempting to maximize SERP “mindshare” and gain brand exposure.


How People SearchSearch engines invest significant resources into understanding how people use search,

enabling them to produce better (i.e., faster, fresher, and more relevant) search engine

results. For website publishers, the information regarding how people use search can

be used to help improve the usability of a site as well as search engine compatibility.

User interactions with search engines can also be multistep processes, as indicated in

the user search session documented by Microsoft and shown in Figure 1-5.

Figure 1-5. Merrell shoes user search session

In this sequence, the user performs five searches over a 55+ minute period before

making a final selection. The user is clearly trying to solve a problem and works at it in

a persistent fashion until the task is done.

Marin Software provided us with data on one consumer durable retailer (whose prod-

ucts represent high-cost, considered purchases) for whom 50% of the orders involved

more than 10 clicks leading up to the conversion event.

For this particular retailer, when you look at the number of different ad groups that

were clicked on in those 10 clicks, the clicks were mostly on the same keyword. In

fact, for more than 75% of all conversions that came from multiple paid clicks, all the

clicks were from the same ad group. Only 7% of conversions came from three differ-

ent ad groups (and none from more than that).

HOW PEOPLE SEARCH 51

Table 1-4 shows the average delay between the first click received by the site and the

resulting purchase for this example retailer.

Table 1-4. Delay between first click and purchases

Delay between first click and purchases Percentage of users

Same day 50%

2–7 days 9%

8–30 days 12%

31–90 days 26%

More than 90 days 3%

This behavior pattern indicates that people are thinking about their tasks in stages. As

in our Merrell shoes example in Figure 1-5, people frequently begin with a general

term and gradually get more specific as they get closer to their goal. They may also try

different flavors of general terms. In Figure 1-5, it looks like the user did not find what

she wanted when she searched on Merrell shoes, so she then tried discount Merrell shoes.

You can then see her refine her search, until she finally settles on Easy Spirit as the

type of shoe she wants.

This is just one example of a search sequence, and the variety is endless. Figure 1-6

shows another search session, once again provided courtesy of Microsoft.

In this search session, the user has a health concern. This particular user starts with a

five-word search, which suggests that she may have some experience using search

engines. At 3:01, her search on headache pregnant 3rd trimester leads her to Yahoo!

Answers. After visiting this site, the user suddenly gets more specific in her search.

She begins to focus on gestational diabetes, perhaps because something she saw on

Yahoo! Answers led her to believe she may have it. The session culminates in a search

for first signs of gestational diabetes, which suggests that she has concluded that this is

quite possibly the issue she is facing.

The session stops there. It may be that at this point the user feels she has learned what

she can. Perhaps her next step is to go to her doctor with her concerns, prepared to

ask a number of questions based on what she has learned.


Figure 1-6. Health user search session

Our next search session example begins with a navigational search, where the user

simply wants to locate the travel website Orbitz.com (see Figure 1-7). The user’s stay

there is quite short, and she progresses to a search on Cancun all inclusive vacation pack-

ages. Following that, she searches on a few specific resorts and finally settles on cancun

riviera maya hotels, after which it appears she may have booked her hotel—the final site

visited on that search is for Occidental Hotels & Resorts, and the direction of her

searches changes after that.

HOW PEOPLE SEARCH 53

Figure 1-7. Travel user search session

At that point, the user begins to look for things to do while she is in Cancun. She con-

ducts a search for cancun theme park and then begins to look for information on xcaret, a

well-known eco park in the area.

Users traverse countless different scenarios when they are searching for something.

These example search sessions represent traditional desktop interactions.

Recent data from mobile search shows different behavior for mobile searchers, who

are more likely to be close to completing a transaction. Data from a May 2011 eMark-

eter study showed that 55% of people visited a business they found in the search

results after searching for information on their smartphone devices. Search engines do

a lot of modeling of these different types of scenarios to enable them to provide better


4 U.S. Census Bureau News, “Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales, 1st Quarter 2015,” May 15, 2015,http://bit.ly/ecommerce_q1_2015.

results to users. The SEO practitioner can benefit from a basic understanding of

searcher behavior as well. We will discuss this in more detail in Chapter 2.

How Search Engines Drive EcommercePeople make use of search engines for a wide variety of purposes, with some of the

most popular being to research, locate, and buy products. Ecommerce sales reported

by the U.S. Census Bureau were a healthy $80.3 billion in the first quarter of 2015.4

Forrester Research forecasts that U.S. ecommerce retail sales will reach $370 billion by

2017, outpacing sales growth at brick-and-mortar stores, as shown in Figure 1-8.

Figure 1-8. Forrester Research online retail forecast to 2017

It is important to note that search and offline behavior have a heavy degree of interac-

tion, with search playing a growing role in driving offline sales. In April 2014, Google,

in an effort to solve the online search/offline conversion attribution dilemma,

announced the launch of a pilot program within its AdWords system called “In-Store

Attribution Transaction Reporting,” teaming up with large data providers Axciom

Corp. and DataLogix Holdings Inc. to combine cookie data with offline personal infor-

mation databases. It will be interesting to see how this program performs, and to what

extent it helps search marketers close the attribution gap between search and brick-

and-mortar conversions.

HOW SEARCH ENGINES DRIVE ECOMMERCE 55

5 eMarketer, “Mobile Will Account for 72% of US Digital Ad Spend by 2019: Consumer Usage andBetter Ad Formats Drive Dollars to Mobile Apps,” March 24, 2015, http://bit.ly/mobile_ad_spend.

6 Mediative, published by Enquiro Search Solutions. “Eye Tracking Report 2: Google, MSN, andYahoo! Compared!” November 2006, http://bit.ly/eye_tracking_paper.

The Mobile ShiftIn March 2015, eMarketer published a study showing that mobile advertising spend

continues to increase at the expense of desktop advertising, and projects that by 2019,

mobile ad spending will rise to $65.87 billion, or 72.2% of total U.S. digital advertising

spend.5 Figure 1-9 shows the steep upward trend projection of mobile ad spend

through 2019, reflecting consumers’ increasing use of mobile devices and tablets for

search—and search marketers are taking notice.

Figure 1-9. eMarketer projected mobile ad spending through 2019

The History of Eye Tracking: How Users ScanResults PagesWay back in 2006, research firm Enquiro (now called Mediative) conducted heat-map

testing with search engine users that produced fascinating results related to what users

see and focus on when engaged in search activity.6 Figure 1-10 depicts a heat map

showing a test performed on Google; the graphic indicates that users spent the most

amount of time focusing their eyes in the upper-left area, where shading is the dark-

est. This has historically been referred to in search marketing as the “Golden Triangle.”


Figure 1-10. Enquiro eye-tracking results, 2006

This particular study perfectly illustrated how little attention has traditionally been

paid to results lower on the page versus those higher up, and how users’ eyes are

drawn to bold keywords, titles, and descriptions in the organic results versus the paid

search listings, which receive comparatively little attention. It also showed that differ-

ent physical positioning of on-screen search results resulted in different user eye-

tracking patterns. When viewing a standard Google results page, users tended to create

this “F-shaped” pattern with their eye movements, focusing first and longest on the

upper-left corner of the screen, then moving down vertically through the first two or

three results, across the page to the first paid page result, down another few vertical

results, and then across again to the second paid result. (This study was done only on

left-to-right language search results—results for Chinese, Hebrew, and other non-left-

to-right-reading languages would be different.)

In May 2008, Google introduced Universal Search (discussed in more detail in Chap-

ter 10), which was a move from simply showing the 10 most relevant web pages

(referred to as “10 blue links”) to showing other types of media, such as videos,

images, news results, and so on, as part of the results of a basic web search. The other

search engines followed suit within a few months, and the industry now refers to this

general concept as blended search.

Blended search created more of a chunking effect of user eye attention, with the focus

“chunks” hovering over various rich media objects such as images or video. Under-

standably, our eyes are drawn to the image first, then to the text beside it to see

whether it corresponds to the image or video thumbnail. Based on an updated

THE HISTORY OF EYE TRACKING: HOW USERS SCAN RESULTS PAGES 57

7 Aga Bojko, “Eye Tracking Bing Vs. Google: A Second Look,” GfK Insights Blog, January 27, 2011,http://blog.gfk.com/2011/01/eye-tracking-bing-vs-google-a-second-look/.

eye-tracking study published by Enquiro in September 2007, Figure 1-11 shows what

the eye-tracking pattern on a blended search page looked like.

Figure 1-11. Enquiro eye-tracking results, blended search, 2007

A January 2011 study performed by User Centric7 showed similar results, as shown in

Figure 1-12.

Figure 1-12. User Centric eye-tracking results, 2011

In 2010, Enquiro investigated the impact of Google Instant on search usage and atten-

tion, noting that for queries in its study:


• Percent of query typed decreased in 25% of the tasks, with no change in the

others.

• Query length increased in 17% of the tasks, with no change in the others.

• Time to click decreased in 33% of the tasks and increased in 8% of the tasks.

In more recent studies, we can see how the continuously changing search results are

shifting how users focus on a results page.

In October 2012, Mediative conducted a new eye-tracking study analyzing the areas of

attention on Google Maps results pages for locally targeted searches, and as with a

Google web search results page, users’ eyes were most drawn to the topmost search

result, as shown in Figure 1-13.

Figure 1-13. Mediative eye-tracking results, 2012

A more recent study by Mediative, issued in 2014, called “The Evolution of Google

Search Results Pages and Their Effect on User Behavior” shows us a fascinating pro-

gression away from the “Golden Triangle” as the search results—as well as search plat-

forms (mobile!)—evolve. Figure 1-14 is the heatmap from this study for an updated

Google SERP showing how user attention is moving more vertically than horizontally.

Some have theorized that this shift in attention is due to the increased adoption of

mobile search by mobile device users, while others think that the ever-changing SERP

makeup that pushes the “blue text link” results lower on the page (e.g., the increase in

the number prominence and content of top-of-page paid search ads, as well as univer-

sal and local listings for various queries) is contributing to this change.


Figure 1-14. Google SERP eye-tracking results, 2014: users have moved from horizontal tovertical scanning

Another notable trend in user eye attention is that because the #1 organic site’s actual

position on the SERP is moving lower, sites that are positioned lower on the results

page are seeing more click activity than in years past—making ranking in organic sites

at these lower positions more valuable than in the past as well. Figure 1-15 highlights

the increased attention being placed lower on the page.


Figure 1-15. Google SERP, eye-tracking results, 2014: lower SERPs get more attention

These types of studies are a vivid reminder of how important search engine results

pages really are. And, as the eye-tracking research demonstrates, as search engines—

and therefore search results—continue to evolve, users’ search and engagement pat-

terns will follow suit. There will be more items on the page for searchers to focus on,

more ways for searchers to remember and access the search listings, and more

interactive, location-based delivery methods and results layouts—which will keep


changing as other search environments and platforms, such as mobile, continue to

evolve.

Figure 1-16 shows a “Mega SERP” published by Moz: a display of the current universe

of potential results within a Google SERP.

Figure 1-16. Moz mega-SERP

Click Tracking: How Users Click on Results (OrganicVersus Paid)By now, you should be convinced that you want your site content to be prominently

displayed within SERPs. It never hurts to be #1 in the organic search results.

In contrast, data shows that you may not want to be #1 in the paid search results,

because the resulting cost to gain the #1 position in a PPC campaign can reduce the


8 AdGooroo, “Research Update: How Keyword Length and Ad Position Impact Clickthrough Rateand Cost-per-click on Google Adwords”. June 2008.

total net margin on your campaign. A study released by AdGooroo in June 20088

found that:

Bidding for top positions usually makes financial sense only for high-budget,

brand-name advertisers. Most other advertisers will find the optimal position

for the majority of their keywords to lie between positions 5–7.

Of course, many advertisers may seek the #1 position in paid search results, for a

number of reasons. For example, if they have a really solid backend on their website

and are able to make money when they are in the #1 position, they may well choose

to pursue it. Nonetheless, the data from the survey suggests that there are many

organizations for which being #1 in paid search does not make sense.

Even if your organic ranking is #1, you can still increase the ranking page’s click rate

by having a sponsored ad above it or in the righthand column. The AdGooroo survey

showed that having a prominent paid ad on the same search results page makes your

#1 organic ranking receive as much as 20% more clicks.

Distribution of Search Results and TrafficTo start breaking this down a bit, Figure 1-17 shows the screen real estate occupied by

the two types of search results. This screenshot was taken prior to Google’s January

2012 “Search, plus Your World” announcement, but it’s the type of screen layout

related to studies that will help you understand which portions of the search results

receive the most clicks.

This example from Google shows how the paid results appear above and to the right of

the organic search results. Note that Google often does not show paid results above the

organic results, in which case the paid results show up only on the right.

Your position in the results has a huge impact on the traffic you will receive. Studies

on the impact of SERP position have shown widely varying results, but do agree that

the advantage of higher positions is significant.

CLICK TRACKING: HOW USERS CLICK ON RESULTS (ORGANIC VERSUS PAID) 63

9 Catalyst, “Google CTR Study,” http://www.catalystsearchmarketing.com/pubs/google-ctr-study/.

Figure 1-17. Paid and organic search results

In 2013, Catalyst Search Marketing published the most recent comprehensive study of

Google CTR (click-through rate), which shows CTR data for both desktop and mobile

searches, as well as for branded and unbranded searches.9 In this study, Catalyst found

that the top four Google SERP positions received 83% of first-page organic clicks, and

that 48% of searches result in a first-page organic click. Table 1-5 shows the average

CTR (percentage of clicks received) by Google SERP position.


Table 1-5. Google CTR by position

Average position Average CTR

1.00 17.16

2.00 9.94

3.00 7.64

4.00 5.31

5.00 3.50

6.00 1.63

7.00 1.09

8.00 1.04

9.00 0.44

10.00 0.51

This data provides insight around platform CTR differentiators (desktop versus

mobile), searcher intent CTR differentiators (branded versus unbranded), and query

length CTR differentiators (one, two, three, and four-plus-word query data).

In Table 1-6, you can see that the more refined a user’s search query is—that is, the

more words used in the query—the greater the likelihood that the user will click on

search results farther down the page.

Table 1-6. Google CTR by position and query length

Average position One word Two words Three words Four+ words

1.00 17.68 16.32 16.28 18.76

2.00 4.41 8.30 10.58 12.41

3.00 3.56 6.86 7.93 8.64

4.00 1.50 4.10 5.12 6.38

5.00 1.86 2.64 3.61 4.11

6.00 0.37 1.10 1.60 2.18

7.00 0.00 1.08 1.12 1.36

8.00 0.00 1.13 1.45 0.84

9.00 0.08 0.52 0.36 0.53

10.00 0.44 0.42 0.54 0.62

As the search engines, search engine results pages, and searcher behavior evolve, the

practice of search engine optimization must evolve in tandem.

CLICK TRACKING: HOW USERS CLICK ON RESULTS (ORGANIC VERSUS PAID) 65

ConclusionSearch has penetrated the very fabric of global society. The way people learn, work,

share, play, shop, research, socialize, and interact has changed forever, and organiza-

tions, causes, brands, charities, individuals—almost all entities—need to have an Inter-

net presence of some kind, and they need the search engines and search functionality

within all platforms to generate exposure and facilitate engagement. As our society

moves ever closer to a professional consumer (“prosumer”) economy, the ways in

which people create, publish, distribute, and ultimately find information and resources

on the Web will continue to be of great importance. This book will investigate further

just how search, and therefore search engine optimization, is at the center of the web

ecosystem and thus is your key to success in the ever-evolving digital economy.


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