New data from a 2011 quarter four survey organized by Compete.com tells us that the tipping point for seeing a massive jump in website traffic comes as the result of earning a top organic listing in Google. Data from the survey shows that approximately 85 percent of all SERP listings shown are organic, with 15 percent appearing as paid advertisements. Additionally we have learned that 55 percent of all SERPs have ads.

If You Don’t Finish First, You Finish Last

Ricky Bobby from Talladega nights always says, “If you don’t finish first, you finish last.” While many of us thought he was referring to professional race car driving what we have learned at Dinomite is that he was actually referring to organic listing placement. It turns out that the top organic listing receives 53% of all page clicks while the second place organic listing receives only 15%. The third place link gets 9%, the fourth place sees 6% percent, and the fifth place link is only clicked on just 4% of the time.

But lets go back to that difference between first and second. The first place listing receives an incredible 53% of all clicks while the second listing only sees 15%. That is a gigantic difference that in a short period of time can separate two competing businesses by thousands if not millions of dollars resulting from inbound leads and increased brand exposure depending upon the industry. Multiply this difference by six months or even a few years and the what you’ll find is that businesses with a top organic listing compared to their second place competitor will be the Michael Jordan of their industry while the second place business will have to settle as the Karl Malone. Although both Jordan and Malone are household names, I don’t think Nike or Hanes ever signed Malone to an endorsement contract and I don’t believe you’ll ever see somebody wearing Karl Malone sneakers.