Search Engine Strategies: Searcher Behavior: Enquiro
Next up was Gord Hotchkiss, President and CEO of Enquiro. His company ran a study that tracked eye movements over the Google search page. They were hoping to discover how important search optimization factors (like keywords, trusted URLs, brand names) were to clickthroughs in the search results. What surprised him was when he discovered that searchers, at least initially, could care less about anything but the top results. They were ignoring every relevant bit of information. 27% just clicked on the first result, barely even looking at it.
As the users experience went on, and the level of confidence in the search eroded, the data changed drastically. While the top results got great clickthroug rates just because they were there, the bottom results were getting carefully studied clicks, with emphasis on exactly those factors they had hoped to see. This means the 4-10 results need to pay more attention to snippet optimization than the top 3 do. Keywords should be prominent, brand names should be visible, and all the other advice you’re used to hearing if you’re in this business.
Users tend to view search results in an F-scan pattern, looking at the first result, scanning laterally right, than jumping back to the left hand side. The searcher then scans vertically downwards, stopping on relevant information, and then moving laterally right again. For 60% of searchers, this pattern continues all the way down the page. The other 40% hit the end of the first screen and immediatly scan to the sponsored links on the right hand side. Those who don’t go to those links still see the Google Ads on the top of the page, so they get much more eye time.
Users spend the majority of their time in a “Golden Triangle of Search”. Imagine a right triangle with points at the top left hand corner, the bottom left hand corner of the first screen, and the right hand site end of the first listing. Almost all activity takes place here, and if you have anything eye catching in that triangle, you’re perfect.
My advice, if you can’t crack the top 3 results, optimize for “bad searches”, ones where the users are getting irrelevant results at the top, followed by yours. They will tend to get very angry at the first few, then study your carefully. In these scenarios, your page titles and snippets must be perfect, because you have a great shot at getting a click if you seem relevant. Additionally, if your site isn’t properly optimized, you better hope for the top results, because the bottom ones will get you nowhere. Most users will look at your site and just shake their heads.
