Organic Search Boosts Paid Search
Can organic search results affect paid search results? It appears so! But then I am not surprised. Chris Crum from WebProNews has an interesting report that suggests that having organic search results appear on the same page as paid search can boost click-through’s by as much as 11.7%.
At the beginning of this month we wrote a post titled (Social Media Marketing Is About Branding, Not Selling) that examined the results of various marketing techniques. One of the key findings in that study indicated that:
multiple impressions (three impressions in their tests) provided much better results than single impressions.
Although this study looked at advertising and marketing rather than pay-per-click marketing the analogy is similar. It really does boil down to exposure. If you could also have a banner on those search results pages, chances are your click-through rate would double yet again, especially on a ‘trusted’ site like Google.
Google has always claimed that paid search does not affect organic search positioning, but I am not aware of any Google statistics regarding click-through’s when both appear on the same page.
One early statement in Chris Crum’s report appears to be a puzzle. The report authors claim:
On average, the impact of organic listings on paid advertising is 3.5 times stronger than vice-versa, possibly because of the tendency of consumers to trust organic listings more than paid ads.
You would think that if organic listings had a higher trust level, they would be link-clicked-through. The inference appears to be that if there is an organic listing, the trust factor swings across to the paid listing. It could also be something far more basic.
When someone enters a search phrase, they will naturally look at the organic results first. We have all been almost trained into that habit. If we don’t find anything that strikes us there we then look at the paid listings. Of course, we see a second version of the organic listing and, like a magnet, are drawn to it. It’s familiar; we have seen it before and so it draws the click.
If it is the case that organic search can boost paid search then it’s all the more reason to ensure your SEO is spot on for a page one listing and that your paid listing has a good quality score to put you on page one!
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