We shall look at four different consumer demographics, 18-24 year olds, Men, Women and Over 55’s, and see how they use the internet, how they search and their views on organic and paid search listings.
Google is by far the most popular choice of search engine handling 60% of all search queries within all four demographics, 21% 18–24 year olds, 28% 25–34 year olds, 19% 35–44 year olds, 14% 45–54 year olds, 9% 55–64 year olds, and 6% 65+ year olds, using it as their number one choice. Bing is the second most popular with an overall average of 3.23% of the market share worldwide with 18-24 year olds (3%), Men (4%), Women (6%) and Over 55’s (6%) using it as their first choice. Yahoo comes in third with just over 1.16% of the worldwide market share, 18-24 year olds (5%), Men (10%), Women (6%) and Over 55’s (8%) preferring it as their first choice. (There are 17 alternative search engines)
82% of 18-24 year olds use a search engine to find the website they are looking for, 18% try and guess it and type something directly into the address bar. 80% of Men search and 20% guess, 85% of Women search, 15% guess and 89% of Over 55’s search 11% guess. It’s quite interesting that so many users would try to guess the address instead of using a search engine. This is a valid reason for having a simple and easy to remember domain name, if you have one which people can easily remember or guess they will find you, if you have one which they have to search they may end up using your competitors, which is not what you want.
We already know that generally users automatically start at the first organic listing, here is that fact quantified – 95% of 18-24 year olds look at the ‘organic’ listings first, while 5% look at the sponsored links first. 91% of Men look at the ‘organic’ listings first, while 9% look at the sponsored links first. 93% of Women look at the ‘organic’ listings first, while 7% look at the sponsored links first. 96% of Over 55’s look at the ‘organic’ listings first, while 4% look at the sponsored links first.
All four groups believe that the organic listings are most relevant. 91% of 18-24 year olds, 91% of Men, 95% of Women and 97% of Over 55’s all think the organic listings are most relevant to their search.
The figures relating to paid search listings, indicates the importance of an effective Pay Per Click campaign. It highlights the need to make sure you know where you are targeting and which keywords you are targeting, or your sponsored links will be ignored. It also suggests that sponsored links are far too generic when the ads are being created, therefore not attracting qualified leads and costing you business.
Paid search is a very effective marketing tool, and is ideal for a business who is looking to generate large volumes of traffic to their site when you they simply do not have a strong enough organic listing.