SERPS Up
How eye movement research can improve your SEO
When you enter keywords into a search engine the page that comes up is called the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This term sometimes refers to the single page or the complete collected results depending on context. It is important to understand how people respond to these pages to formulate a complete marketing plan for your website.
For years, psychologists have study eye movements in relation to attention, comprehension, reading speed, and general interest. Cornell University performed a recent study on SERPs. They measured both the click percentage rate and visitation time on sites via SERPs using a number of undergraduates in a controlled study setting. The results provide some valuable information for SEO and SERPs in particular. Some key points from the study and application for your site are outlined here:
- The first two listings of a search page receive almost equal attention initially when a page is displayed. However it drops off significantly from there and dissipates. This reiterates the importance of high listings on pages. Interestingly, rankings 6-10 receive almost equal initial attention from the viewer.
- People tend to focus more on entries before the page break, no matter what rank the page break falls. For instance, if the break is at 6 you will see a drastic drop off at 7.
- The time spent exploring the abstract of search result 1 are almost 3 x that of the next closest, item 2. The time spent actually exploring the sites however decreases at a slower rate. This may indicate that they assume pertinent info to the subject to be obtained in the first abstract and then are clicking looking for format and other features that appeal to them.
- On all search engines tested, from the 5-6 result all measurements fall off dramatically, leading one to believe that 5 or above is really the magic SEO rating.
This study re-emphasis the importance of high ranking but it may also imply that most of us are going to be forced to lure customers through other means including pay per click advertising that also has a prominent feature on the page and further studies can be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of this and other techniques.
Another study was performed by The Estlow Center regarding eye movement and page layouts. Though this was performed on homepage layouts, it gives us great insight to how people scan all pages. The following were reported in 2004:
- People scan from the top left part of the page and spent more time fixated on this portion than any other portion. This would indicate the most favorable spot for ad placement and is consistent with the Cornell study.
- People generally move from the top left in a diagonal line to the middle right, bottom, then top right looking at the right margin from bottom to top. Though most people assume that people read from left to right in sequential order, this is not true for scanning information. The top right portion of a page is scanned later and for a shorter amount of time than the middle sections all the way across the page. This indicates the least appealing ad space or listing space on a page.
- The best overall placement on any page is indicated to be in the top left to left middle of the page.
Research has always been important to marketing. These are just two studies in a flourishing area of research. Use these tips to pick search and ad placement. We will continue to explore similar studies in future blogs so stay tuned.
Keywords: Serps
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