50% of Searchers Don’t See Your Site If You Rank Below Top 5
January 26th, 2010 | Link-Assistant.Com
Not long ago Google released an interesting tool called Browser Size. It lets you see how the visitors' browser sizes affect their experience of your site. Particularly, it shows you how much of your site fits in people's browsers.
As SEOs we couldn't pass up the opportunity to use Browser Size on Google results pages to see how many listings people get to see above the fold depending on their browser size. The shocking truth is about 50% of searchers don't see your site above the fold if you rank below top five. Full results of the test are below but first
A Few Words About Browser Size
Browser Size is a nifty tool that helps analyze your webpage layout. It's dead easy to use: you simply feed your webpage URL and get a visual picture of your site as seen by people with different browser sizes.
- Google Browser Size
Your webpage is divided into areas that fit into various browser sizes. The percents indicate how many people see each part of your site above the fold. The picture reads like this: the part of your site that fits into the 99% area is seen above the fold by 99% of users (1% don't see this part), only 95% of people see as far as the 95% section mark up goes (5% don't see this) and so on.
The insight you gain from browser size can help you analyze your site to better understand the visitors' behavior, put the most important elements on your site above the fold and increase the conversion rate.
Ever wondered why 70% of people never click your download link? Well maybe they just don't see it and don't bother to scroll. Check your site with Google Browser Size and find out how most people see it in their browsers.
Applying Browser Size to Search Engine Results Pages
As SEOs we couldn't pass up the opportunity to use Browser Size on Google results pages to see how many listings people get to see above the fold depending on their browser size. The tool bases its data on browser sizes of Google users which makes it perfect for this experiment.
The organic results are often pushed down by AdWords ads when they appear in top position. So we analyzed 4 different scenarios: search results with no AdWords ads above, 1 ad above, 2 ads and 3 ads above the natural results.
Here are the results.
The diagram reads as follows: the first two results are seen above the fold by 99% of searchers, the fifth ranking appears above the fold for 80% of users (20% have to scroll to see it)… the website in the 7th position appears above the fold for only 30% and so on.
In my browser I can pretty much see 8 positions of Google results. But it turns out that only 50% of searchers see below the 5th listing.
One AdWords Ad Above
In cases when the keyword triggers one AdWords ad to appear in top position the fifth ranking is pushed below the fold for 40% of users.
Two AdWords Ads Above
Whenever there are 2 AdWords ads on top ranking #5 will only get your website above the fold for around 40% of users (60% will have to scroll).
Three Google Ads Above
Three AdWords ads in top position for your keyword are an SEO's nightmare. Unless you're in top 3, your site will only appear above the fold for half of users.
Conclusion
The results suggest that you need to rank at least in top 5 for your site to appear above the fold for most searchers. And if there are AdWords ads on top of the results page (which are plenty for most "selling" keywords) the task gets tougher. If you rank #5 and there's just one AdWords ad on top, your site goes below the fold for around 40% of searchers. We know that few people click to the second results page. I wonder how many scroll down the first one?
This data can be very helpful on early stages of keyword research. When you estimate the search volume of a keyword and evaluate the competition it's a good idea to check how many AdWords ad appear for it in top position (use proxy to get the accurate picture of the search landscape in your target region). That will help you estimate where you need to rank to put your website above the fold and get most clicks.
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So it basically means that the more popular the keyword is (because only popular keywords get more ads) - the more important it is to score higher for that keyword.
It also might be a good idea to think about actually buying add for a particular keyword - firstly to get yourself higher in the best spot area, and secondly for a chance to push the competition down.
Devoth
I just wish they allowed this to be done by country, so we could know what each market sees, for % of our pages.
e.g. my guess is that the USA on average is behind the bigger Asian markets where most people have newer computers with larger pixel / screen viewing areas.
It would be nice to know which country market one might have trouble in!
Also so people know what % of users are using a mobile phone verse laptop or PC browsing...
The idea of screen hot spots and browsing patterns, could also possibly not be equal globally i.e. the suggested top 5 rule, might not apply to some language markets...
For example in China people were found to seldom click on the 1st search result (as these historically were advert based)and browse right past the top results even upto several pages to find what they are looking for (so search engine results page design and learned browsing patterns & language used, can perhaps have a big effect on where the best spot to be actually is).
See full report - http://pages.enquiro.com/whitepaper-chinese-search-engine-engagement.html
Also a summary of the report(for those interested and lazy to download the whitepaper) - see http://searchengineland.com/chinese-eye-tracking-study-baidu-vs-google-11477
NB: not the best summary perhaps, as I also disagree, that native speakers of Chinese can not quickly browse content - perhaps can easier than people can in English due to sentance / phrase width.
This article assumes one major thing. It assumes that people won't or don't scroll. I've seen plenty of CTR by SERP position charts, and I can't speak for SERPs specifically, but I've seen heat map and click reports that shows that people will actually scroll on a web page and even interact with content below the fold. In this scenario, however, you have to take this all with a grain of salt and ask one major question:
"Are people more likely to click on the links above the fold just because the are there, or because Google has delivered the most relevant results in the top 5?"
On the flip-side, this also doesn't take into account searches that bring back any Blended or Universal Search elements... like maps, image results, real-time results.
Very interesting. Thanks for the information.
Thank you very much for this blog. Keeps us up to date with everything!
I actually read this somewhere. But this post is really helpful. It would only show that most search engine users would usually view the top 5 of the SERP. And in addition users would most likely only view the first 5 pages.
Thanks for the info - any idea what the split is on local maps clicks versus natural links?
We haven't tested this, but you can easily get an idea by searching for a keyword that brings up local results and then viewing the results page through browser size.
[...] It turned out that if you rank in top 4 your site shows up above the fold for 90-99% of searchers. If you’re in the fifth position 20% of people will have to scroll down to see your website. Still think that ranking #5 is good enough? The 6th spot is only seen by 40% of searchers and 60% have to scroll, and so on. The picture is largely affected by AdWords ads when they appear in top position. Want to learn how many people don’t see the 4th position when there 2 Google ads above the organic results? Check out the full experiment [...]
Very interesting post (BTW I didn't know this useful Google tool).
In my opinion, this important issue is not only related to the peculiar behaviour of a given geographical market (as I read in many interesting comments above), but is also related to the particular personal propension of the target.
If a user actually intends to buy a product or a service, his attention on the search results that are not above the fold is likely to be higher in any case.
The same can be said about users that are looking for a particular informational content on a web page.
On the other hand, if we talk about the user experience of a single web site, then placing important information above the fold for the wide majority of users is a very important matter that needs to be analyzed on the basis of exact behavioural and technical parameters: reading patterns, attentional and perceptual mapping, eye tracking and so on.
Nice post!
Thank you for the information. Yet I have to put a lots of efforts to see one of my blog in top 5 position. 2 position are already taken by the adwords. So, I have to be within first 3 position this is going to be rally difficult. With the help of LinkAssistance SEO tool I believe I would be able to do that.
The 10th Position gets more visits then the 9th thats fakt! i know it from my own http://rubbellose.net
You can Discuss this, let me know yout thoughts.
What is amazing with Google at the moment is that it appears to be providing custom ranking based on what you have searched for previously. My firefox addd on also picks it up as number 1 - 3!
This is why the rank tracker is so important to get your actual rankings.
Great info! It takes a lot of efforts and SEO understandings to be on top indeed!
Thanks to link-assistant for the wonderful tools..