Whilst we in the search marketing business consider the UK market as one of the most advanced in terms of search engine marketing and search engine strategy a recent report by hosting company fasthosts claims that British consumers still don’t understand how search works.
According to the report 1 in 4 Britons were unaware that website owners were able to make changes to their website which would influence their position in the natural results and 22% believed that the natural SEO results were influenced by how much a company was paying to appear.
On the PPC front 1 in 3 respondents claimed to ignore sponsored links completely due to their commercial nature believing them to be “less worthy” and “less useful” than the natural search listings.
As a search engine marketing professional it is shocking to read the understanding of search in the UK is so poor but it does raise the question of what this means to the future of search engine marketing as consumers become more knowledgeable about search engine marketing. 33% of the respondents claimed to avoid PPC listings as they were less useful, but I would argue that they are less useful because the user does not understand them. I am fully aware of how PPC works but I still use sponsored listings when it suits my need. If my search is due to end in a purchase I am far more likely to use paid search listings as I know they will direct me to the most useful page and also contain details of any special offers available to me. However if my search is based around finding information I am more inclined to use the natural results as they will be less commercial.
As I also understand how natural search results work I am also more considered in how I view them. Rather than clicking blindly on the top results I take some time to read the results, check the URL and the listing content to decide which one is going to be the most useful. I am not going to rely on the search engine to decide which the best website is for me, I will make up my own mind thank you. I may even perform a second search before even clicking a link!
The results of this report suggest that consumer interaction with search engines could be changing over the next few years and companies engaging in search marketing are going to have to understand what this means to them. Is CTR going to drop on paid listings as users understand them more? Is position 1 in the search results going to mean less as people become more selective with what they click? Only time will tell.