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Guess which spot every business owner wants to secure in search engine results pages? The unambiguous and obvious answer is Number One. Almost everyone out there is striving to get the number one spot for evident reasons.

As per the 2014 survey from Advanced Web Ranking, second and third pages of Google only receive 5.59% of click-throughs, while the number one spot received a whopping 31.24% click-troughs. And even before the survey everyone was well aware from the benefits of #1 spot.

 

But the real question is, in this ever changing digital world is it really as useful as it seems, does it drives the sale like nothing else and is reaching the apex of search results helps you in becoming the Alpha of your niche.

Let’s get the picture clear: Since you know that web pages optimized just to rank higher can’t succeed anymore. The search engines are now leveraged with many algorithms and common sense as well. So they quickly identify the poor web pages who are trying to play cheap tricks with world’s most advanced search system.

So the question arises: What can we as marketers, business owners, publishers & bloggers do to get noticed and praised by the searcher.

Rich media

While doing a search what you look for in the website and on what basis you decide to enter that website?

Ans: You read the meta description and see the search results snippets (The text shown below the URL).

Since Google started to embed Star reviews, images & customer ratings it has become easier for the searcher to decide that which website can provide them desired information.

 

To measure the influence of this rich media on search behavior, Blue Nile conducted a study and found out that the search results which were showing rich media received higher click throughs then the results featured above them. The boring blue link captured the least click throughs.

 

A test site with reach media received an amazing 61% Click troughs and the site at the first position with non-rich media managed to get only 48% Clicks.

 

Another test on an Ecommerce website showed the vital impact of rich media. The site with review stars on the second position received a whopping 76% click-troughs whereas the website at #1 position were struggling to get more than 9%.

The survey results may seem shocking at first, but it actually reflects the human tendency. Humans respond quickly and positively to Visuals first then that compared to plain text. The trust factor also plays a part here, as the more information a website provides the most authoritative it looks.

Rich media also helps the searcher to assume that whether a website have the relevant content or not. Hence, it is improving the search experience and seems like it will keep enhancing in future as well.

Conclusion

Rich media is like covering your product in an attractive package. It attracts the eye and makes your website look authoritative. However, if your website has low or irrelevant content then it will not help you in ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERP), it will just make your link attractive.

Have anything to add? Just write in your comments below. Alternatively, you can email sales@agencyplatform.com or call (888) 736-0541 to know more about us.

About The Author

Dave Thompson works at AgencyPlatform.com, a White Label Software + Services provider for online marketing agencies.

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