A new study about search engine user behavior reveals the importance of page one rankings for success with online marketing.

Think you can get away with not having your website listed on the front page of Google and other popular search engines? Think again.

According to a recent study by iProspect, 68% of search engine users will never look past the first page of search results.

What’s more, only 8% of users make it past the third page of results. These numbers represent a significant change from 2002 when iProspect created its first report where the numbers were 48% and 19% respectively. While the numbers have been trending towards increased importance for page one search results since 2002, these latest findings indicate a greater importance than ever to optimize your website to achieve better search engine rankings for search terms critical to your business success.

In addition to the obvious benefit of getting more clicks to your website, the study has also identified an additional reason for having page one search engine rankings. The study found that almost half of people surveyed believe that companies that are listed high in the rankings are the top companies in their field.

This represents a fantastic opportunity for companies looking to enhance their brand and increase sales.

The 2008 study also examined for the first time the use of vertical search engines. Vertical searches are specialized searches, such as image search or news search, which allow users to narrow their results to exactly what they are looking for. The study found that only 40% of search users have clicked on results from a vertical search. Of those people, 26% have used image search, 17% have used news search, and 10% used video search.

The study also looked at blended search which the major engines now use to place news, image and other vertical specialized results into the regular search results. Far more people suggested that they have clicked on a blended search option, with 36% clicking on a news option, 26% on image results and 17% have claimed to click on a video result.

These results suggest that now high natural search engine rankings must also be concerned with optimizing images, news articles, videos, and all other content.

The study is available for free by clicking the iProspect Blended Search Results Study or going to the iProspect website at www.iprospect.com.

Need help in getting high search engine rankings for your business? Contact RSS Ray today to find out what you can do to get top search engine rankings on the key search terms for your website.

Tags: Blended Search, Search Engine Optimization, search engine usage, vertical search, website traffic