SEO Belfast

I can across a few screenshots I had taken over the last couple of years, so I thought I’d just show a timeline of the changing nature of Google’s search and the danger of just relying on your ‘FREE’ organic traffic to keep on delivering and improving.

Nov 2011

Below you can see the organic listings, with a number of Pay Per Click ads at the top. Great if you’re top of the pile in the organic listings. There’s also shopping results just below the 2 organic listings.

September 2012

Notice that product listing ads with images have started to creep in here on the right. PLAs didn’t show for wine label searches for quite a while, they triggered an alcohol filter, but they’re very much showing now.

April 2013

Now if that wasn’t enough, Product Listing Ads are bang smack in the middle, and your organic traffic is going to take a hit.

Moral of the story, Google can change what they like and it can have a serious knock on effect on your site’s traffic. Organic traffic no doubt will continue to drop, so you’d better look for other ways to add to this.

If you didn’t know already dismissing Google Adwords simply on the basis that you have to pay for the click, is limiting the amount of interested potential customers you can get to your site. This research from Google just goes to show that, stick with just an organic strategy and you’re missing out on good business.

June 2013

While I got round to publishing this article, I came across the search below which just highlights the issue. For some searches Google is moving towards being an ecommerce shop front, with product listing ads totally dominating any organic results.

Organic traffic is very much up against it, and this pattern only looks to be going one way.