Woot! No kidding. Over a billion dollars (USD). That's a lot of clicks!
Earlier last week, I published my findings in an infographic. In my article today, I’ll share with you my top five SEO insights and strategies from having poured over all this paid search data for nearly an entire week.
Why should you care? By understanding what’s happening on the paid search side of the Google SERP, you can better understand and anticipate trends in organic search. Kind of like how that Sun Tzu guy says tokeep your enemies closer in his art of war thing! (Not that paid search is the enemy or anything - but you know what I mean - it's just good to know.)
So without further delay, drum roll, please …
5.Global Average Cost per Click Data by Industry
Most SEOs will inevitably be asked, at some time by an employer or client, what the value of their work is. It’s a legitimate question, but can be challenging to quantify. In my study, I calculated the global average CPC’s for Q3, 2012 for the top 10 industries in Google in US dollars. Now, at a minimum, you can now tell your stakeholder how much it would cost to buy those organic clicks, on average. Here they are ordered by cost:
- Finance -- $3.09
- Jobs & Education -- $1.80
- Business & Industrial -- $1.67
- Computers & Electronics -- $1.39
- Internet & Telecom -- $1.11
- Beauty & Fitness -- $1.11
- Autos & Vehicles -- $0.97
- Home & Garden -- $0.76
- Travel -- $0.29
- Shopping -- $0.25
You might be thinking, wait -? Those are the outliers in highly competitive markets. On average, paid clicks generally cost less, particularly when you include clicks from outside of the US into the mix as I did. If your industry wasn’t listed here, I found that global average cost per click on Google Search (including the Google Partner Search Network) worked out to $0.53 USD in Q3, 2012.
Also, this isn’t to say that the value of SEO is limited to just the cost of paying for the clicks that get generated; there are other business benefits of SEO beyond just clicks. For example, blogging and content marketing can help establish thought leadership, and the value of the sales and leads derived from those clicks. Think of this as just one additional way to quantify the value of your SEO work in a very concrete way.
4. Local, Mobile Search Highly Effective for SEO?
When Google released their "disappointing" Q3 Earnings this month, their stock was crushed - down by 10% in a single day. According to Google, CPC’s were down by “approximately 15%” and year over year advertising revenue growth rates declined from 21% to 16%. Industry analysts are placing the blame for slowing ad revenue growth rates squarely on mobile search, which is said to monetize on average at roughly half the value of a desktop search. Why?
Mobile ad engagement is lower in comparison to ads on the desktop, which intuitively makes sense. When you’re doing a Google search on your smartphone, you’re likely on the go somewhere, and probably less likely to be tempted to click on an ad that isn’t absolutely critical to what you’re looking for in that moment. There’s also considerably less real estate for ads compared to the desktop. These issues are most certainly impacting Google revenue growth as mobile search volume is expected to exceed desktop search volume by the end of 2014.
The upshot of this trend from an SEO perspective is that if a mobile search is monetizing at half the rate of a desktop search, then we can deduce that an organic search listing from mobile search has a greater chance of being clicked on than the same search executed on the desktop. Furthermore, since one in three mobile searches have location based intent (for example, finding a nearby business), I’d argue that there is a tremendous opportunity to be had in SEO on mobile devices, particularly for searches with local intent!
3. A Huge Increase in Paid Clicks and Impressions
Unfortunately, this one isn’t as good of news for the SEO industry as the last one. (I’m trying to be balanced here!) If you don’t want to hear any bad news, I’d recommend just jumping ahead to the next item in the list.
According to Google, average CPC’s fell by “approximately 15%” (they didn’t give a precise number), My own research pegged that number at far higher a value (down 16.5% on Google Search and down 18.2% on Google Display Network over just the last two quarters!). I also found mixed click-through rates: down 12.4% on Google Search, and up 13.8% on Google Display Network in the last two quarters.
Yet despite these strong headwinds, Google’s total advertising revenues were still up around 3% for the quarter and 16% for the year.
How did they manage to pull that off?
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