• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, April 2, 2020

A recent study analyzes a variety of organic search and paid-search data, but one of the most interesting findings analyzes the type of search results from a query that lead the searcher from the engine to a website.

Images top the list at 45%, followed by featured businesses at 34%, organic search results at 34%, top stories at 33%, videos at 32%, popular products at 23%, and people also ask at 22%.

BestSEOCompanies.com surveyed 496 business owners and marketing pros about their use of Google Ads and SEO methods, analyzing the benefits from each. Then the company surveyed 522 search engine users, analyzing their perceptions of paid and organic search results. The findings dig into the return on investment associated with paid and organic approaches and how users view search returns.

Respondents were nearly twice as likely to click on organic search results as they were to click on search ads, according to the data.

The data suggests consumers are more likely to find organic search results more trustworthy compared with search ads. They also were three times more likely to find organic search results more relevant, compared with search ads.

The top five most trustworthy areas were organic search results at 79%, knowledge graph at 77%, featured snippets at 73%, top stories at 73%, and featured businesses at 68%. The top five most relevant were images at 39%, organic search results at 37%, top stores at 36%, people also ask at 32%, and featured businesses at 32%.

Some 84% of searchers clicked on organic search results, while 67% clicked on images; 67%, top stories; 65%, knowledge graph; 65, people also asked; videos, 65%; popular products, 61%; featured snippets, 61%; featured businesses, 57%; search ads, 45; and sponsored shopping, 42%.

The data also shows the percentages of searchers most likely to click on type of result. Some 18% are most likely to click on organic search results, 17% on images, 14% on top stories, 9% on featured businesses, and 7% on featured snippets.

And while the survey results offers a lot of interesting data, BestSEOCompanies.com points to the most striking contrast as clicks on organic vs. paid ads. Whereas 84% of users frequently clicked on organic search results, only 45% did so for search ads. Even fewer did so for shopping ads.

The rest of the data from the study can be found here.