Laurent Bousis - Search Study 2012 - Part 2: The impact of paid and natural search on your business. - INTRO BY: Laurent Moreau, Ant Research

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Online Search Behaviour StudyLaurent Bousis - iProspect Belgium

11h00 – 11h20: Part 1

14h40 – 15h00: Part 2

Trustworthiness of Results

How did the trustworthiness of search results evolve over the last 12 months ?

• There have been 159 changes to the search engine results reported by Google in Q1 2012 to improve quality. 39 last month.

• 17.5% feel the results are improving. Only 10.7% feel they are declining.

Online Search Behaviour Study 2012 – Copyright

Do you know the difference between sponsored and natural search results on the search results page?

• 1 in 2 heavy users and 2 in 3 light users does not know the difference


Do you think the following zones are sponsored ?

• Even for those that state to know the difference, the side ads (zone B) are mostly correctly identified as sponsored but the top ads (zone A) much less


Which type of link do you trust most ?

• One half does not discern, the other half tends to favor natural search results over sponsored search results


Validation by Observation

Please click on the search result you would choose for this query

• The first click on the search result pages for a number of sample transactional and informational search queries was recorded as a red dot for the 988 interviewed users (they had the opportunity to skip the

question).

“assurance auto” – “autoverzekering”


“crédit en ligne” – “online krediet”


“vol bruxelles new york” – “vlucht brussel new york”


“bmw x1”


“recette tiramisu” – “tiramisu”


“calculer imc” – “bereken bmi"


“restaurant sablon” – “restaurant antwerpen"


“emploi namur” – “werk antwerpen"


Conclusion

• The most efficient positions by far are the top 3 sponsored results and the top 3 natural results.

=> If your business can maintain a position in both, you will capture a quarter to half the search volume

• Side sponsored results have been declining for some time (check your top vs other KPIs).

=> If your business is not visible in natural results and only on side sponsored results you will capture ten to twenty times less search volume.

• We demonstrated this search behaviour can be explained by the evaluation belgian users make of the search results and their knowledge and perception of the difference between paid and natural links.

Thank you !

Download the full study here:www.iprospect.be

Contact me [email protected] Belgium Managing Director

Visit us atiProspect Belgium SA NVRue du Moulin à Papier 55 PapiermolenstraatBruxelles 1160 Brussel - Belgium

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Laurent Bousis - Search Study 2012 - Part 2: The impact of paid and natural search on your business. - INTRO BY: Laurent Moreau, Ant Research