Google has made an announcement last month about removing the right side ads of desktop search results, while increased the number of ads at the top of the organic result from 3 to 4. Google includes that the four ads will trigger for highly relevant and commercial queries. Now it has certainly made the marketers to rework on their paid search campaign in order to sustain the paid traffic. But the big question is; what impact this is going to have particularly on organic search results?
Well, Google’s decision of displaying four paid ads and pushing organic search result one position down will definitely have an impact on brands that entirely focus on organic rankings and have good positions. Since this roll out has only been live since few days, it is too early to predict it’s overall overall impact. However it has certainly made marketing professionals to start modifying their strategy which they have been using in Adwords.
Couple of reasons why Google has made this change?
Some possible reasons for stopping adverts on right side by Google are:
Google aligning the desktop browsing experience with mobile
As mobile search queries surpassed queries coming from desktop that means Google taking the user experience and design of their mobile products and matching that approach on desktop computers to sustain the desktop search queries flow.
Entice users to click more advertisement
When search queries made for highly commercial term like buy red socks, top 50% of the screen is occupied with advertisements – 4 Paid Ads plus Google’s Product Listing Ads. Unless a user is specifically seeking for a certain business or the advertisements aren’t appealing, user would like to click on those ads.
Additional space for Google Product Listing Ads
The additional space on the right side allows Google to place large PLA without making the layout over crowded.
Will this impact Organic Search?
It can, although it is hard to say how exactly. As additional fourth ad above organic results further push results down which means brands can experience low click through rate which can impact on organic traffic.
So what is the next step for marketers to do?
Less ads above the fold which means it is going to be harder to sustain the same amount of impression and clickthrough rate you used to. It could mean there will be a high bidding wars happen to secure those positions.
If you want to stay in the picture, following are the few suggestions:
- If you are having a live PPC campaign running, review your new result by navigating to the Tools tab and then click on “Ad Preview and Diagnosis”
- Review your average position for a given keyword. If you are lower than 3 or 4 you will be pushed below organic results which means chances are very low to receive clicks.
- Increase your average position for relevant keywords by either increasing bid or improving your Quality Score.