Just a quick question. I'm the owner of www.QuoteMeAPrice.com and am redesigning an launching my site. Has anyone seen any research that suggest people are apt to buy more / convert, when they click on a link that has top placement? I guess what I am getting to is that in my mind there may be a certain percieved value in the top bidder (web surfers will assume they are the best, cheapest, making the most money, etc...) I'm converting my site into a travel site, and I'd be willing to bet that my conversions would be higher if I bid on the same keyword "Hotels" and had top placement with the ad, and then bottom placement or middle of the road (for the same text ad)?
Just from my pay-per-click experience. It seems to me that its true, top placement clicks convert more. I am glad you said something because I was wondering if I was crazy.
Well, we just tried it on our site and DID NOT see any increase and we pulled back after a week as it was costing us a fortune. We have also read that lower placement will result in better conversion as these are the "serious shoppers" who are comparing sites. IMHO I believe you just need to test it for yourself. With the diversity of the web I think it is hard to generalize from one site to the next. While it didn't work for us on this particular site it might for you on your site. Only testing will give you the answer that you want.
also depends on your niche... is it somethign people are really researching for or just want the instant gratification this is also a factor .... testestest fine tune testest test and repeat will get you best results!
Sean again, the owner of www.QuoteMeAPrice.com. Someone just brought up a good point that lower bids may be serious shoppers. My thought is that when people begin a search (such as hotels) they initially start the search by clicking on the first link. After reviewing the product, may shop around and go down the page probably in decending order. In my mind, if I'm the last guy they click on I have a top chance of converting.
No i don't thing so, the main thing that i thing can really increase your ctr is a good title and description.
For the first several spots, conversion rate goes up as placement goes down. This is due to less information seekers and more serious shoppers. Surprisingly, this reverses itself as you get even further down the rankings (e.g. second page on Google). The conversion rate goes down again. Brian
I find this very interesting - any ideas as to why this may happen? It seems very counterintuitive to me. Sam
I've definitely seen research that indicates that top placements convert better for generic terms. However, more specific terms tend to convert at the same rate throughout the ranking levels.
This subject of how high one should appear on the ad list is very much a case of 'put yourself in the shoes of a typical customer' for your business. People looking for a weather report will most likely click through the first link, and the first link only. So critical to be top. Intelligent People researching highly sensitive, political or easily manipulated subjects may search through two full pages of links before forming an opinion, making a purchase or taking their next action. People looking for the best deal on a book might only click thru the top 3 links as the overall cost of the product is low. However if they are looking for the best deal on an expensive laptop they might click thru the top 6 links before forming a judgement. Im just really basing this on my own actions, but i fully accept i might not be a good example.
I'd agree with Ade that search behaviour is category specific. I did a study of organic search behaviour that found that results 1 to 5 accounted for 55% of click traffic, results 6-10 for 20%, results 11-20 for 15% etc. However, when reviewing the results most of the deeper searches - page 3 and beyond were for specialised searches such as names. Generic product searches tend to be much shallower.
Purchasing the first position has not always worked for me. I would say the more specific the term the better the conversions. Example: search for "widgets" will get you tons of traffic. Most general keywords do. but keyword "blue widget number 4xcr" is a person who knows exactly what they are looking for. I bid for the top 3-4 places for general terms. For me they have always been more expensive as well. The more specific the more I want to be #1 and usually my conversions are pretty good.
no its not like that!!!! staying on top position can be tough on you specially when your budget is not high.