The Perpetual Traffic Report by Ryan Deiss
rganic Traffic Is Growing…Paid Is Declining
I want to show you some statistics my team and I recently uncovered that you may find shocking. (I know I did when I first saw them…) Here’s a screenshot that illustrates how the clicks are distributed on any given search engine results page:
[ Screenshot inside Google showing percentages of clicks based on position. Source: http://training.seobook.com/google-ranking-value ]
Allow me to explain…
Despite what you may have been told, our research and testing reveals that sponsored search results (i.e. Google AdWords Ads) only receive 4 – 5% of the total available clicks! In other words, if 100 people perform a search on Google, only 5 will click on a paid listing!
The top 2 or 3 paid listings that appear above the organic listings receive 2 – 3% of the available clicks. If you’re stuck on the side bar, you’ll be lucky if you get 1 – 2% click-through rates. If you have an active AdWords account, none of this should come as a surprise. Heck, Google’s own tools warn you of their pathetically-low click-through rates…
Google Admits To Puny Amounts of Traffic
The Perpetual Traffic Report by Ryan Deiss
Below is a screenshot of the “Traffic Estimator” tool inside of Google AdWords. (If you have an AdWords account, I invite you to find this tool inside your own account and check my numbers.)
- Perpetual Traffic Formula
[ Percentage of clicks as shown by Google’s internal “Traffic Estimator” tool. ]
As you can see, I told “Traffic Estimator” to assume that I am in position 1 – 3 (that’s why the “Estimated Ad Position” is 1.25).
In other words, I asked Google to give me all the traffic I can get! Then, to calculate the “Percentage of All Clicks”, I…
- Multiplied the number of “Estimated Daily Clicks” by 30 to get the number of “Monthly Clicks” I can expect, and then I…
- Divided the “Monthly Clicks” number by the TOTAL “Local Monthly Searches” (which in this case “Local” is referring to just the U.S.)
For example, if you take the “Estimated Daily Clicks” for “dog training” and multiply it by 30, you get 13,260 “Monthly Clicks”. If you then divide this number by 1,500,000 (the Total Monthly Searches) you get 0.89%.
So there you have it…Google’s own “Traffic Estimator” tool is telling you you’ll probably get less than 1% of the total available traffic…even if you bid up to one of the top 3 positions!
Not too exciting is it?
Again, if you have a Google AdWords account I invite you to navigate to the “Traffic Estimator” tool and double-check my math. If you do, you’ll be able to see with your own eyes that…
…the percentages are disturbingly low!
The Perpetual Traffic Report by Ryan Deiss
SIDE NOTE: Anyone who has used Google’s “Traffic Estimator” knows that the numbers it gives you are lower than what you will actually see in the “real world”, so most marketers will multiple this number by 2X or 3X to get a more accurate total. And while doing this improves the percentages a bit, they still remain within the 2 – 3% figure that our research uncovered! So as it stands, even if you’re a master at Pay-Per-Click, you’ll still only get 2 – 3% of the available clicks on average…
So if people aren’t clicking on the sponsored listings in Google…
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE REPORT TO THE PERPETUAL TRAFFIC REPORT BY RYAN DEISS
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