• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 9, 2012

Marketers have had little visibility into search engine results pages, such as what company appears first in the list for a specific keyword, which has made the ability to analyze consumer behavior between the search and the click virtually nonexistent. New research from Kantar Media's Compete provides insight.

Most searches present an opportunity to influence consumer behavior. But after analyzing tens of millions of search engine results pages generated by consumers in the fourth quarter of 2011, about 55% contained at least one paid-search ad somewhere in the query results.

Does it matter where on the page thsoe paid-search ads land?

Compete's study suggests that 61% of ads land in the right rail, compared with one in four paid listings on the top of the page. Although the right side owns the majority of paid listings, it is the top of the page that best gains searchers' attention.

Only 24% of advertisers purchase ads that appear on the top part of the search engine results page, but 85% of the time, consumers click there first. Sixty-one percent buy ads on the right rail -- but only 13% of consumers click there -- and 15% buy ads on the bottom, where only 2% of consumers click.

When it comes to organic listings, position matters. Fifty-three percent of all organic clicks occur on the first result of the page. Of all paid clicks, 59% of people click on the first listing on the top of the page -- while only 15% click on the second listing on the top, according to the report.

While most search experts will tell brands that tying an organic strategy into a paid campaign works best, a good organic SEO strategy requires a blog to be updated often with insights and tips into a specific industry to increase inbound links and the number of pages crawled by search engines.