By Matt Jackson
Barely a day passes without some mention of Google, or one of its competitors, within the news. Such is the dominance of the Internet, and Google specifically, that the business news and technology news sections are seemingly brimming with relevant stories. One of the most recent is an apparent, although hardly earth shattering, decline in the total click through rate for Google paid ads.
According to Comscore reports, January saw a decline in paid advertising clicks but an incline in organic searches. In reality, the decline was hardly a massive cause for concern with annual figures dropping from 533 million clicks a year to 532 million clicks a year - a drop of 1 million clicks or less than 0.2%.
Reasons For The Decrease
Share prices have also been steadily dropping, with many analysts subsequently lowering their target prices and predictions in line with these drops. A number of reasons have been cited for this action including the poor state of the US economy, lower than expected growth in Google international markets, and disappointing profits reported in January.
The US Economy
The US economy has taken a serious and relatively prolonged tumble. As such, consumers have become more wary over spending their money and generally have less disposable income - however, news of yet another significant rate drop in March looks set to have the desired impact by improving these figures.
Growth Figures In International Markets
Google's major market is in the US, but has significant secondary markets in other countries. The UK, Google's 2nd largest market, reported growth figures that were not as high as expected. Growth was still obvious but not to the extent that analysts were predicting.
Profits Less Than Expected
For the three months to the end of December, Google reported profits rising by 17%. This is still a healthy growth but, again, such is the nature of Google's business that growth figures were expected to be considerably higher.
What This Means To Marketers
To the majority, the outlook is hardly bleak. Adsense, adwords, and organic search is hardly likely to suffer as a result of these reported figures. Indeed, organic searches did increase. The most likely reason for this is that consumers with less disposable income attempt to make more informed decisions on their buying. The average consumer becomes more likely to look around for information and shop around for the best prices and organic search results are the vehicle to drive these quests for knowledge.
PPC and SEO are not facing their death and changes in forthcoming months are likely to see Google respond to these figures in rigorous fashion.
Matt Jackson is a web content writer specializing in SEO copywriting. Through his website, webwisewords, he creates compelling content that converts for customers from around the globe operating in every industry.
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