| I got this from one of my Super VIPs in SeoNitro. The guy really knows his stuff and I am always happy he keeps his nose to the ground and keeps me informed! :-)I am wondering what your comments are and what you are discovering because of the Google Gift!
Here is the email… |
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| Dori,
I have to be the first to tell you. Google gave us a magnificent gift, I suspect within the past 48-72 hours but I am not sure exactly when. Look at the backend of the google webmaster tool at any of your registered sites. They are now giving us actual Queries, Clickthru rates and %. And…. They are also telling us about clickthru rates when our sites are in different positions in the SERPS. Wow, in just minutes, I have dispelled some long standing 6 year old rumors with this new information. You may already know that Position 6-7 in the PPC was being advocated as best positions to buy for those wishing to stretch their dollar. The truth is that position number 1 is the best to buy if u have the big bucks but 6-7 is best if ur stretching ad dollars. Well, now I can see that on a few of my keywords, I am also getting 300% more clickthru’s on position 6-7 – BUT WE ARE TALKING about Natural Search now and nOT PPC. Don’t look if you are in a hurry, cause this new analytical information will surely cause you to lose an extra hour or so skimming from site to site. I am assuming that you use the google webmaster tool for your real money sites. Warm regards Trevor |
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| Thanks Trevor!
Comments? |
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Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.
Hey Dori,
yeah I saw that when I was looking to fill in a prospective keyword report for a client. It looks fascinating. It seems that google is always sneaking out this amazing tools and then leave it up to us to find it. Kind of like a massive treasure hunt 🙂
Is there a central notice board that makes a note of updates like this. Either way life is getting better for the internet marketer.
NB. You have some sort of tracking appended to the end of the title link on this post on the main blog page, it is breaking the link and might need to be fixed if you want people to start commenting properly.
we just fixed it! =:0
I’m wondering if this isn’t another way for Google to track statistics of web pages in order to decide whether they should be indexed or not. For example if your ctr (click through rate) is low, in Google’s eyes that would = non-relevancy, therefore poof your site is de-indexed or sandboxed. Kind of like what they do with analytics and the bounce rate. I’ve heard from several different sources that using analytics is bad especially for affiliate sites. Upon removal of analytics, pages show up in the index whereas with analytics they do not.
I for one use non-Google tracking for statistics.
Just a thought, comments welcomed 🙂
Miles
Hi Dori
I also noticed this the other day when I printed out a report just like Lindsay said above but your post definitely brought the true implications of the importance of this to my attention!
Glad I didn’t see this late at night however you did ruin a Saturday night because I decided to stay in and pour through some statistics 🙂 This might be a rabbit hole I’ll never get out of, haha!
Thanks
Mark
He is saying ranking number 6 or 7 is better than ranking #1 in google organic search..what?
I left a question on his blog about the #1 vs #6-7 havent heard back yet. But it looks like ‘if you cant afford to spend the time to get to #1 it is better to go for the #6-7 over anything else….
if that makes sense 🙂
I found it hard to believe it and I’ll do some tests.
Thanks for the information 🙂
Hi Dori
Thanks for the info. I haven’t take a close look at Webmaster Tools for a few weeks so hadn’t seen this before. Now that I have seen it I think I wish I hadn’t!! My click through % is only 6% for one of my main search terms where I rank 2nd in the SERPS. I either have awful meta tags that are putting people off or Goog’s numbers aren’t quite right.
My results for this particular site also state that I get most of my click throughs from Postion 6-10 or Page 2. I can’t see why this would be correct.
Maybe Google is trying to stop Webmasters from over optimsing to rank high in the SERPS by saying we’d be better off if our sites didn’t rank as well.
Can someone pls confirm the statement above Miles Hennis… Is it better to use Google or another service?? Ta, Nigel.
Can someone pls confirm the statement above Miles Hennis… Is it better to use Google or another service?? Ta, Nigel.
@Miles
You mentioned the double edged sword – that of using Google Analytics because of possible negative results. I had a time wasting nearly violent ( lol ) argument last year with the security personnel of a medium sized sportsbook in Costa Rica. The truth is, Google is tracking your affiliate sites anyway. They are doing so through google toolbars that users of your site are using and they are doing it through their own google browser.
So, if they are already tracking you, you might as well understand every bit of information that they make available. All of it.
@lindsaymacvean
Sorry, for not answering this on my own blog but might as well do it on Dori’s, lol. I can’t honestly tell you why a result in position 6 or 7 might get better ctr in the natural search. I can only tell you that I see this anomaly at least twice now while poring through these new reports. It is most assuredly NOT the norm, just an interesting anomaly that I am looking at, at this time.
I suspect it is happening because top 10 search results now include news, images, videos etc. We know from experimentation with adsense that text immediately below images gets a far higher CTR than plain text in the same location.
Could this effect also be happening every now and then in the top 10 google serps? Perhaps, but it will take a lot more testing to figure this out.
I am also not saying to go for positions 6-7 in natural search. My number 1 and 2 positions nearly always get better traffic than 6-7.
Remember that a high CTR is not just a function of the actual position in the serps but is also a function of how relevant and interesting your metatag description is to the actual search query.
Concentrate on creating metatag descriptions that look interesting enough for people to click on. Many of us, simply load the description with keywords ( which turn searchers off )
Also, know that google might take the metatag description from your site and use it or it might take it from alexa ( if you filled it in there, lol ) or it might take it from dmoz if you are registered there or it might arbitrarily take it from a mid-page location quite close to the actual keywords on the page. Confused yet? ha ha.
I guess the point is, fill in unique metatag descriptions for each page, write clearly and concisely and treasure simple but clear grade 10 level writing where possible.
@Inverness Hotel
6% CTR for a second position isn’t bad at all. Here is how to tell if your metatag description is seriously good – Are you getting 3-5% CTR’s for positions 3-10 ?
If so, it means that as people scan the serps and see your entries further down the page, they are still liking what they see and therefore continuing to click on it even though it is no longer number 1 or number 2.
The point being, that while searching most of us will quickly scan through positions 1-5 looking for relevancy to our search. So, if you have an exciting eyecatching Enquirer Style Head-liner in position 5, why shouldn’t you get almost as many clicks as an ordinary metatag description in position 1?
What Google really wants to know is truly what documents are people consistently clicking on. While backlinks are very, very important, just as important is the real human interest level in your document.
And the only way to seriously boost the interest level that your document/webpage will have is to pay attention and write Enquirer type Newspaper style headliners as your metatag descriptions.
I could write :
Inverness Hotels – Rooms for Rent, good food, great prices.
or I could write
Your Room Has A View – Best Prices All Seasons. Use Code 41523 for best discount. Ask 4 Friendly Alanna. Your Desires – We Accommodate 716-555-1212.
Irrespective of where in the top 10 both of these descriptions show up, if you were looking for a hotel room – Which description would you click on?
Ha ha, in some cases, people wouldn’t even click – They would just call Alanna directly, lol. Mission Accomplished
@justin
“6-7 is best if ur stretching ad dollars.”
All rules were made to be broken, but this one is really a good one. Perry Marshal was the first I know of to publicly teach this to his students and in most of my testing, I can say that its really 90% accurate.
Position 6-7 in pay per click does NOT get the highest CTR but depending on a lot of other factors it can be highly instrumental in getting the highest conversion rates.
At the end of the day, its conversions not ctr that really matter.
Why does this work? The theory being most discussed is that a whole lot of researchers, competitors, wannabee’s and lazy people click on the number 1 and number 2 results in ppc. Their commercial intent is nearly non-existent. Along with this non-purchasing group are those who have strong commercial intent.
We suspect that those with strong commercial intent will read the entire ad carefully before clicking. Because they are picky, they are just as likely to choose a compelling ad in positions other than positions one or two.
Which means that positions 3-10 will get their attention and clicks too.
Which means that ads in positions 6-7 which are cheaper than ads in positions 3-5 can actually be a far more efficient way of communicating with the group having high commercial intent.
Just a theory, but the pay per click groups who want to efficiently run campaigns pay a fair amount of attention to this theory.
As with any other ‘rule’ there are exceptions particularly when dealing with brands and countries where the population is brand crazy ( UK ) and exceptions that also occur when you already hold the number 1 position in organic search. When that is the case, do all in your power to hold the number 1 or 2 position in PPC too because of a tripling/quadrupling effect that Google has mentioned happens when people see the same site mentioned twice right above each other.
Since my last post I’ve been taking a closer look at the clickthrough stats on my main site.
For the the search term “Avalon Guest House Inverness” the results show that I’ve ranked No.1 less
than 10 times and a couple of 100 times at No.2. For this term I’m always No.1 in the SERPS which leads me to believe that my local business listing is being considered as No.1 but Google isn’t including clickthroughs from local listings in the stats.
Could this be why everyone’s getting their hits from 6-10 (they’re No.1 in the SERPS but Googles counting the local listings as positions 1-7).
To support this idea for “”Avalon Guest House Inverness” I’ve only had a 47% click through rate. Why would someone search for my guest house and then not click through to my site. My assumption is that 47% have clicked on my SERPS listing but the other 53% have clicked on my local business listing.
Thanks for the info Trevor.
@Inverness Hotel. Your welcome.
Your question about Google local listing inclusion in the webmaster tool and positioning analysis in the tool is interesting. My gut feeling is that they are not included but now that the question has been brought up, guess I also have to look closely at that too.
As for your 47% – when I get what looks like confusing numbers, I go to Google Analytics and look very closely at the numbers that let me know whether visitors are new or returning.
In the case of hundreds of sites that I have examined, the site name itself as a search term has extremely high returning visitors and very, very few new incoming.
This is quite logical unless you are advertising on radio or TV and therefore establishing a brand offline for people to search for.
So, who are these 47% in your CTR ?
They are probably, 90% of them, returning visitors who were too lazy to type in your entire domain name so they just used google to find you – again.
The longer your domain name is more likely for this to happen.
Hi Trevor
Thanks for reminding me about New vs Returning – I hadn’t taken that into account. I thought that might have quashed my theory but I’ve just checked GA for this site and my New are 80% and Returning 20% so my original theory may still hold some water.
Maybe see if we can get Matt Cutts to throw some light.
@Inverness
Wow, new 80% new visitors on keywords in/resembling your hotel domain name? That’s truly fabulous.
Sounds like your own customers are doing a great job of spreading the good word around in an almost viral manner and/or a very significant number of people are searching from devices that are not allowing cookies hence they keep looking like they are new.