A recent study Opitify makes clear: the top three organic results take on average 58.4% of all clicks. The first ranking attracts 36.4% of the clicks and the latter 12.5%.
That is, either you're up or you miss the best part of the pie.
That we knew , the problem that I come to tell here is that this increasingly competitive pie is getting smaller.
Marginalizes Google organic results
Today, for certain searches (mainly products), to be among the top 3 results on Google and not as profitable as it used to be.
The blame for this is a new practice of Google which is cornering the top of the results page with your own ads (AdWords) and services (Google Images, Google Shopping, Google Places, Google Local, related searches, top references, etc.).
The trend is clear: do you want to be visible in the Google listings? Then pay.
This should not surprise because Google is a company and its primary purpose is other than to maximize profits. Do harmed? All we strive to attract traffic "free" searches on Google, that is, the vast majority of we have a website.
I put it in quotation marks because in fact free is not free. Everything has its cost, do it yourself work (time spent and effort expended) or other contracts or who pay for it (content production, generating backlinks, other tasks of SEO, etc.)..
The most affected are small businesses that were well positioned and the creators of niche sites.
3 Examples that speak for themselves
I will present three examples of searches conducted in English on Google.com. Why in English? For now this trend is more evident marginalization searches in English, but also is starting to show on searches in Spanish. Over time this trend will become more apparent.
1. Search: restaurant san francisco
[Above the fold] (part of the page visible on the screen without having to scroll down. The amount of visible page will vary depending on the resolution of your screen).
As you can see the entire screen shows the results of Google Places. If we move down the top 3 results are organic to those entries that 2 Google News.
Consequence: the first three organic results on the screen to the naked eye but you have to scroll down. The fourth and subsequent organic growth results appear under Google News, so they are at the bottom of the screen. This means less visibility and, therefore, fewer visits and revenue.
2. Search: lcd monitors
[Above the fold]
The first 2 results are paid ads in Google AdWords. We are Google related searches shops and brands. The fourth element is an organic but Wikipedia is very difficult to beat in the rankings. The fifth and last item visible on the screen is devoted to Google Shopping.
Consequence: No organic, excluding Wikipedia, the naked eye appears on the screen. To see them you have to scroll the screen down. This means less visibility, less traffic and less revenue.
3. Search: shampoo for thinning hair
[Above the fold]
1 - Three Google AdWords ads. 2 - showing related searches shops and brands of shampoos. 3 - organic result. 4 - Google Shopping. Under normal conditions (according to my screen) should appear 4 organic results without having to scroll the page down, and appears only one.
Although the exclusion of organic results is more evident in the terms found in English on Google.com, Spain (as in other countries) does not escape from this trend. Google.es Search in: Bikes - insurance - disco - pizza - movie - and many others and see for yourself.
Curiosity
If you search google seo on Google.com you get an announcement of Google promoting Google Adwords.
The water clearer: You have visibility on Google? Then pay.
Two lessons:
1 - We need to diversify traffic sources to reduce dependency on Google. Although in terms of traffic Google is still king did not stop working on other sources of traffic.
Your business can not rely on a single source of visitors. Google is constantly changing and you never know when you go to see affected ( changes in the algorithm , penalties, marginalization of your results, etc.)..
There are many options to diversify your traffic sources: twitter, facebook, youtube, G +, online and offline advertising, have a newsletter , have a podcast on iTunes and iVoox, pay for email marketing campaigns, make article marketing , etc..
2 - We need to pay attention to those services that most promoted in Google searches related to our business and take advantage of it to our advantage.
How? With presence in those services. Whether paying for advertising or going out in Google Shopping, Google Images, Google Places, etc.
Only one thing is clear: we must pay attention to the changes to be able to act accordingly. For my part, I will try to inform you when they occur or, like today when you sign up trends that may affect them.
Did you like? Share this post on this Social Media! Thanks!
Very disturbing!
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to take organic traffic for granted since it appears that we generate it with our own skill and effort, but it is all at the whim of Google.
What do we do if the whole first page becomes the dominion of Paying customers of Google?
As you said, it's vitally important to begin cultivating other modes of traffic generation right now...
Yup thats why we need to try hard to get rank in the google 1-3 ranking :)
ReplyDeleteYehaa..
ReplyDelete:)