Are they Searching for you?
Insight into what users search for.
Have you ever wondered what the average person does when they go online? No no no it's not porn, I swear. It would be great if we knew what they do online and get their attention once they get there. A recent study by "icrossing" went out to address that very question, what are web users doing online. The results show that 53% of US adults use search engines almost every time they are online. That's one step closer to have users find you through the search engine.
Results from icrossing also show:
- 88% of search engine users research specific topics
- 75% need maps
- 64% look for current events
The times users spent at the Search Engine was used primarily for researching specific topics, 88% of users reported doing so. After specific topics came maps at 75% and then news/information on current events at 64%.
Natural or Paid Search Listings?
Half of us don't know the difference.
One very interesting piece of information that came out of this is that half of us don't know the difference between natural and paid search listings. Do you know the difference? 50% of the males in the survey said they knew the difference.
It is hard to tell on some sites what is paid and what isn't, especially if you aren't paying close attention. The women in this study said that about one-third of them know the difference. These are of course numbers provided to the pollers, the real number maybe even lower. I imagine that the real number would also be about the same for both sexes.
Being able to spot a paid listing versus a 'natural' search result is good to know but why? You'll see studies all over the web about how users click on the top three search results more than anything else. They then couple that with the fact that users say they don't usually click on Pay-Per-Click Advertisements. That's not the full picture though. The following report puts all that information into perspective.
The majority of Search Engine users, both male and female, can't tell the difference between paid/sponsored listings versus the natural/non-paid. You then realize that those top three results people are clicking on are usually the paid ones, as they come up first. Now that my merry-go-round of logic is complete, here are some more fascinating factoids for your water cooler/coffee station chat. 54% of frequent Google users (aka Googlers) report they know the difference between natural and paid listings. The Yahoo! users (Yahoo!ers ???) come in a close second with 42% reporting they know the difference.
Why can't users tell the difference between a paid advertisement and a natural un-paid listing.
The problem is:
- Paid listings don't have clear standards from one search site to the next.
- When they are mentioned they have so many names: sponsored, paid, advertisement, etc.
- They aren't always clearly presented as a paid listing.
- There is no real education process to let users know why there is any difference between a paid listing and a natural un-paid listing.
On the flip side of this the Search Sites don't want to call so much to attention to the fact that it's a paid listing, if we keep in mind that we already know that people prefer not to click on paid listings. It's a gray area. If the paid result gets the user what they wanted then I see no harm in the whole deal. If the listing is 'fooling' the user and turns out not to be relevant then the search sites, advertisers, and the user are the losers.
How relevant are those ads versus the content the user is seeking out?
If they are relevant than it's good for everyone. If they aren't relevant than the advertising is waiting their money and the user is wasting their time. If you do a quick search on Google for "hamburger", like I just did for this article, the number one listing is giving away a FREE Wolfgang Puck Recipe. I would expect since I searched for "hamburger" that it might be a Wolfgang Puck Hamburger Recipe. Behaving like a member of the 50% of males who can't tell the difference between a paid listing and un-paid listing I clicked on it. To my disappointed no Wolfgang Puck Hamburger recipe in site. Instead the web page was collecting Emails for some survey. I can only assume once you filled in your email you would receive a random Wolfgang Puck recipe. This little example is both real and demonstrates that not all listings are relevant. I did not sign-up with my email address and consequently the advertiser just wasted money on their Pay-Per-Click Advertisement I clicked on. Once I saw their site was not relevant to my topic, I promptly left. Keep that in mind the next time you place Internet Marketing Campaigns. To get the most success from your advertisement the ad should be relevant to the keywords you buy.
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