There has been a shift in thinking in search, SEO and PPC, that being #1 shouldn’t be your goal, but instead, it should all be about conversions and hitting your metrics. While I agree that the metrics should usually come first, there is also a lot of value in being in the first position, specifically in paid search.
First, when conducting a search, it has been shown over and over and over again with eyetracking studies that users first look at the top result(s). The first link, from Google Blogoscoped, goes on to mention how Google itself is using that eyetracking study to market their product to advertisers.
“…[a] slide tells advertisers how easily those AdWords are confused with organic search results. The following from an interview conducted with test user Erik is quoted by Google (my translation):
INT [interviewer]: “Why do the results on top have a yellow background, did you notice?”TP [tester]: “I didn’t notice this.”
INT: “What does it mean?”
TP: “It definitely means they’re the most relevant.”
This short interview has two important conclusions. One is that many people don’t even notice that the top sponsored results are highlighted (they used to be highlighted blue… I wonder why they changed the color </sarcasm>). Depending on your monitor and its color settings, a majority of people don’t notice the yellow bars leading them to just believe the first 1-3 results are natural listings. The second conclusion is that people that do see them, or who are told about the yellow highlighted bar, believe that the results are more relevant than the others listings.
These are both two powerful features for advertisers. If you’re on top of the sponsored listings, within the highlighted bars, you instantly get a boost in credibility in the eyes of users. Whether your site is CircuitCity.com or JacksJukeBoxes.com, your site will earn more trust just by being a top result. I’ve never seen any quantifiable data about this trust factor, but clicks don’t lie. The higher your position, the more relevant users feel your site is. What you show the user after the click will determine whether or not you close the sale or waste your money on clicks.
The added brand value of being in the top results has been debated a lot. There have been different studies showing that there is indeed brand lift for being listed in paid search results, specifically the top positions. You can even think about it this way. If you were in a store purchasing a new TV, would you trust LCDazzle or would you trust Pioneer? Brand recognition is a very powerful force at the early stages of the buying cycle. When users have no idea what they’re looking for, the fact that they recall seeing or hearing a brand name will immediately increase the trust factor for that brand. If you’re in a top spot, even if you don’t get the click for that specific search, there is a greater chance that your name will be in the back of a searcher’s head the next time they see your ad than if you’re not there at all.
Volume. In paid search, getting lots of non-converting traffic to your site can become expensive very quickly. Being in a top postion in the search results can provide volume, but may not convert within your target metrics. When creating performance targets, trying to fit all the variables of your business into one exact CPO or ROI target can be extremely tough, if not impossible to do. Companies and marketers do their best with the data available, but it’s not an exact science. Paid search, being a very cheap marketing channel compared to other sources (especially those channels that are difficult to measure), can be used to bring targeted traffic (note: how targeted can vary, but if you have people searching for “laptop deals” then you can be pretty sure they’re looking to buy a laptop) at a low cost. Just getting a user to your site and interacting with your brand has its own added value, even if they don’t immediately make a purchase. This type of added volume isn’t for everyone - I can’t afford to do it with the campaigns I run, but my sites aren’t at that type of level. However, if you or your client is one of the leaders in the vertical, I’d rather spend $100,000 in search than using that budget on TV or radio ads.
Telling your clients that not being number one could actually be brilliant marketing - why fight against 30 other smart SEO or PPC managers for that #1 position when you can satisfy your client by just telling them that position #5 is best for them. It’s a lot less work to say, “that’s the best we/you can do”, rather than taking the time to increase your conversion rate or decrease your costs. Remember, even though the numbers won’t always show it all, there is value in being #1.
Related posts
