Small Business Marketing

Why Internet Ads Are Not Working

Research shows that web users focus most of their time and attention on the top and left of the search results page.

Are you advertising your business online with paid ads that appear on the right side of the web page? How is that ad working for you? Chances are it is not performing to your expectations. The reason why: Research shows that internet users ignore content on the right side of the page and spend more time looking at content along the left, where the natural listings are located.

Whether this is due to natural eye movement or learned behavior “to avoid ads” is a completely different study; in fact this is one perspective which I’m not sure has been studied. But back to the point, does it really matter why this is occurring? Well it might in the future, but frankly right now we aren’t so concerned in knowing why as we are in taking advantage of the fact that this is the resulting pattern of behavior. We know that based on Google’s current arrangement of ads and search results, users are spending most of their time on the top and left of the search results. What is located here? The natural “organic” listings.

Studies on this topic have been performed at major universities such as Cornell University, University of Hamburg, Oxford University and many others. While the individual results had some variations, for the most part they are in concurrence.

Take a look at this “heat map” to understand more about this phenomenon.

My advice? When investing in your business, spend considerable time and resources in trying to improve your natural rankings. Rising to Page 1 of the search results may take some time to achieve; however, the end results will be worth your effort.

To your success,

Johnny Vargas

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Search Engine Ranking Tip #7: Title Tags

One tiny piece of the puzzle which will help your website rank higher is to include your keywords in your web page title tags.

Chances are if you are new to marketing your business online, you only have your company name or some “catchy” phrase in your web page’s title tag. Why? Do you really think users are searching for “Henry’s Careful Clippers – Where Your Happiness Is Our Number 1 Priority” ??  Even worse are those pages with something generic such as “Home” or “Services” as their title tags.

Seriously, who do you think is searching for such terms and phrases? A more effective title would be “San Diego Hair Dresser” or if you must hold on to part of your ego, “San Diego Hair Dresser – Henry’s Careful Clippers” might be okay depending on market congestion.

Bottom line, you need to use terms in your title tag that match what users are searching for in the search engines.

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