Marketers find that it’s frequently difficult to quantify the value of a high Google ranking. But a recent study by Chitika, an online advertising network, provides empirical evidence of the power of a top listing. They analyzed a sample of over 8 million impressions that crossed their network and discovered that the number one ranked site captured 35% of the clicks for that keyword. That’s almost double the clicks for numbers 2 through 4 combined. The performance of the top 10 listings was as follows:

In addition, the value of a first-page ranking is demonstrated. The number 10 listing received more than twice the number of click-throughs as the 11th ranked site.

That means a company with e-commerce sales can now calculate an approximate dollar value for their search engine rankings by employing the click-through percentages suggested in Chitika’s study. Lead values per a specific ranking also can be calculated. With these metrics, you can help measure the ROI of your search engine optimization program to ensure it is creating value.