n a recent study on SERP (search engine results pages) click rates by SeachInsider found that the sites surveyed received more than 95% of all their non-branded natural search traffic from page-one results pages across all three major engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo). The implications from the data are apparent: Most of your natural non-branded generic traffic will come from page one, so optimization priority should continue to focus on gaining page-one visibility.

• More than half of Fortune 500 companies had almost no search engine visibility, with their targeted keywords not ranking in the top 100 search results.
• Only 2% of the domains (not companies) surveyed showed a significant number of their terms in the top results.

So if page one is so important, then why bother with measuring pages two and three?

If your page two and three rankings are generating existing traffic, or show the promise of traffic based on search history for those terms, then they are prime candidates for additional optimization focus in order to push them to page one. It is also important not to get too hung up on position data, as your analysis should also focus on optimization of terms based on business goals, traffic volume potential, and competition, among other factors. ♦

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