There's a mountain of Internet statistics out there and for, most of us, life is too short to wonder about the length of search strings used in Outer Mongolia.
But there are occasions when taking a closer look at the small print could have quite a bearing on our marketing plans.
For instance, did you know that in the United States only 42 per cent of search engine users search on single keywords any more (the majority now use 2, 3 or 4-word search strings) whereas in Britain nearly two thirds of users are still searching on 1-word keywords?* In Canada, it's different again, one third use single-word searches, one-third use 2-word and one-third use 3 or 4 words.
Other countries display other patterns.
If you're in the Business to Consumer market and dealing with perhaps millions of potential customers, those differences in search behaviour could add up to many lost sales if you've optimised for the less popular keyword length in your target geographical market.
When you look at how people behave after they've got their search results, things get even more interesting.
For instance: how does the number of words in a search string affect whether the person searching actually clicks on a search result? The answer may surprise you.
Only 19 per cent of searches on 1 keyword result in a click on an organic search result.
At 2 words, the figure rises to 35 per cent of searches.
3-word searches and 4-word searches produce still more clicks (39 per cent).
And the figures keep on climbing as the number of keywords in the search string grows.
41 per cent of 5-word searched get clicks, and 43 per cent of 6-word searches.
But - and wait for this - when you get to 7-word search strings, a whopping 91 per cent of searches get clicks.
Even 8-word and 9-word searches get an 82 per cent click rate.
It's not until you reach 10-word search strings that the click rate drops off sharply (25 per cent click rate).
Although these findings seem slightly counter-intuitive at first glance, they make perfect sense when you sit at your PC.
A search for 'shoes' on Google generates an unusable mountain of 1,590 million search results.
'Men's shoes' gets it down to 59.
1 million.
'Men's shoes UK' reduces it to 52.
6 million.
'Men's brown suede shoes UK' gets it down to 23 million pages.
And so it goes until you reach 'mens cheap brown suede shoes UK online home delivery' with a 'mere' 792,000 search results.
Equally interesting, the top ranking supplier pages vary as the search string grows - showing that the cannier sites have optimised for longer strings.
What does it all mean? Quite simply we're using longer keyword strings when we use the search engines - some countries more than others.
Web masters need to look more closely at the length of the keyword strings they are busy optimising for.
*Source: http://www.
keyworddiscovery.
com/keyword-stats.
html
But there are occasions when taking a closer look at the small print could have quite a bearing on our marketing plans.
For instance, did you know that in the United States only 42 per cent of search engine users search on single keywords any more (the majority now use 2, 3 or 4-word search strings) whereas in Britain nearly two thirds of users are still searching on 1-word keywords?* In Canada, it's different again, one third use single-word searches, one-third use 2-word and one-third use 3 or 4 words.
Other countries display other patterns.
If you're in the Business to Consumer market and dealing with perhaps millions of potential customers, those differences in search behaviour could add up to many lost sales if you've optimised for the less popular keyword length in your target geographical market.
When you look at how people behave after they've got their search results, things get even more interesting.
For instance: how does the number of words in a search string affect whether the person searching actually clicks on a search result? The answer may surprise you.
Only 19 per cent of searches on 1 keyword result in a click on an organic search result.
At 2 words, the figure rises to 35 per cent of searches.
3-word searches and 4-word searches produce still more clicks (39 per cent).
And the figures keep on climbing as the number of keywords in the search string grows.
41 per cent of 5-word searched get clicks, and 43 per cent of 6-word searches.
But - and wait for this - when you get to 7-word search strings, a whopping 91 per cent of searches get clicks.
Even 8-word and 9-word searches get an 82 per cent click rate.
It's not until you reach 10-word search strings that the click rate drops off sharply (25 per cent click rate).
Although these findings seem slightly counter-intuitive at first glance, they make perfect sense when you sit at your PC.
A search for 'shoes' on Google generates an unusable mountain of 1,590 million search results.
'Men's shoes' gets it down to 59.
1 million.
'Men's shoes UK' reduces it to 52.
6 million.
'Men's brown suede shoes UK' gets it down to 23 million pages.
And so it goes until you reach 'mens cheap brown suede shoes UK online home delivery' with a 'mere' 792,000 search results.
Equally interesting, the top ranking supplier pages vary as the search string grows - showing that the cannier sites have optimised for longer strings.
What does it all mean? Quite simply we're using longer keyword strings when we use the search engines - some countries more than others.
Web masters need to look more closely at the length of the keyword strings they are busy optimising for.
*Source: http://www.
keyworddiscovery.
com/keyword-stats.
html
Source...