SEO Expert, Anthony Yap

An interesting report released by Nielsen/NetRatings titled “Who Benefits from Search [PDF]” shows the breakdown of markets benefiting from search.

In terms of targeting search users, it shows other alternative search engines that have a greater probability of driving visitors to a website so it pays to consider other search engines when optimizing for the UK search market.

iProspect and Jupiter Research surveyed 2,369 online consumers in January 2006 to understand how search users behaved when looking at search results.

Here’s a summary of their findings:

1. 62% of users clicked on a search result in the first page.
2. 90% of users click on results in the first three pages.
3. Having a high search engine ranking has increased in value for a top 10 website with clickthrough traffic potential increase from 48% in 2002 to 62% in 2006.
4. Fewer users actually click past the third page with numbers dropping from 2002 (19%) to 2006 (10%).
5. 82% of users will make their search query more specific by adding keywords in an attempt to obtain a better, more relevant result. Thus, search engine marketers would do well to target more specific, targeted terms which translate to higher quality traffic and conversion rates.
6. 36% of users believe that sites ranking in the top results are the leaders in their industry.

From the findings above, it’s not a surprise that users want to get their information fast and with less hunting around. Number 5 makes a clear case to optimize for a wide variety of more specific keywords rather than focusing on broad, generic terms that have high search volume but low conversion. For those businesses spending lots of money trying to build a brand, they would do well by appropriating a portion of those monies toward better search engine placement and therefore reinforce their brand both online and offline.

View the PDF report.

Sebastian of Smart IT Consulting puts together a comprehensive set of resources for Google Sitemaps. He recently interviewed the Google Sitemaps team and it’s available here.