Online Marketing Blog

Manoj over at Web Analytics World blog has announced the release of a new eyetracking study by Enquiro that takes an in-depth look at interactions with Google, Yahoo! and MSN using eye tracking methodology. Many search marketers are familiar with Enquiro’s original eye tracking report on Google. (pdf)

The new Google/Yahoo/MSN whitepaper covers:

• How We Scan a Listing
• Semantic Mapping
• Information Scent
• Thin Slicing
• Banner Blindness
• Growth of Navigational Search
• Impact of Bolded Search Queries and Icons
• Perceived Relevancy
• Golden Section Theory
• Portal Entry Success
• Interactions with Top Sponsored
• Interactions with Side Sponsored
• Interactions with Top Organic
• Interactions with Bottom Organic
• Interactions with Vertical Results

To wet your appetite further for this invaluable data, here’s a sample of the white paper (pdf) by Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro.

According to the report, “The big finding in the study was the difference in interactions between the 3 engines.”. I think this section of the report will be very interesting as it deals with the different perceptions users have of search results and what design elements for each of the search engines influences those perceptions.

Another section marketers will be interested in is “Marketer‚Äôs Insights”

“Finally, we take all the data and boil it down into some strategies for the marketer. How you can apply these findings to boost the performance of your campaigns. We look at doing a SWOT analysis on a search results page to gain your unfair share of click throughs, look at the impact of position on potential conversions, explore how banner blindness can occur on a search page, show how to use information scent to your advantage in the various sections of the page and quantitatively determine what is the best position to bid for on the page.”

You can learn more and purchase the report here.