Understanding Search Intent from Demographics & Website Analytics

It is quite common for business owners and marketing professionals to consume a daily dose of Internet analytics.  Overtime, the consumer of said analytics will begin to develop a close relationship with their web properties and an understanding of the people who visit it.  However, sometimes the numbers provoke more questions than answers.  The below are data points which can provoke questions.

Not surprisingly, Google outperforms both Yahoo and Bing for Kuno’s branded search terms.  In other words, many more people use Google when looking for the Kuno website.  You’ll also notice a much higher visit to lead ratio for Google than the other search engines.  Why is this?  What would make a Yahoo or Bing user less likely to become a lead?  The answer is search intent and demographics.

Search Intent

This next data set sheds some additional light on the possibilities surrounding the searchers’ intent.  It shows that Google users tend to visit almost twice as many pages as Yahoo users and stick around on the site almost four times as long.  A Yahoo user is also twice as likely to land on the Kuno website and leave right away.  However, Bing users are almost twice as likely to be a new visitor to the Kuno website compared to Google users.

Search Engine Demographics

Google

In February 2011, Google held a 65% market share versus the other main search engines.  Of the users who used the search engine 56% of them were between the ages of three and 34 years old.  The search engine is split 50/50 between male and female.  Over 60% of the search engine users make $60k per year or more.

Yahoo

Yahoo holds a negative trending 16% search engine market share and 50% of its users are 35 or older.  The gender and income statistics are very similar to Google.

Bing

Formerly known as MSN, Bing has a 13% market share and it’s growing in a gracile fashion.  The search engine demographics are very similar to Google.

Conclusions & Inferences

Below is a list of likely reasons and/or conclusions from the above data points that explain Google, Yahoo and Bing's visit to lead performance.

• Google users are generally younger and more sophisticated.  They're more sophisticated because Google does not offer a prepopulated, news filled search environment like Yahoo, but rather offers a suite of Internet products which require some level of customization and personalization (i.e. gmail, iGoogle, etc.).  These are the users that generally come back to the Kuno blog in order to consume additional content.  That explains the low percentage of new visitors, low bounce rate, and high average time on site.  As fans of the content it is much more likely these visitors will convert and become a lead.  Hence, a 3.7% visit to lead ratio.
• Yahoo users tend to be older than users of the other search engines and are not as in-tune with the newest marketing and Internet trends.  Kuno’s content probably doesn’t interest them as much as a younger more in-tune demographic.  Because of this, they tend to stay on the site a shorter time and bounce off faster than users of other search engines.  That is why only .48% of Yahoo visitors convert to a lead.
• Bing users have a much greater chance of being new visitors to the Kuno website than the other search engines.  Bing is also the default search engine for the Internet Explorer browser which comes preloaded on most new PC purchases.  These users are probably less sophisticated than a user that would download Firefox or Chrome.  The content on the Kuno website is probably less appealing or sticky to these visitors.  The result is a visit to lead ratio of .97%

It is quite reasonable to assume there are more conclusions that could be derived from the above data. However, it’s our intent to walk you through the process of understanding search intent by analyzing demographic data and website analytics so you can come to your own conclusions on your own websites. We hope this helps. For additional search help download our SEO Cheat Sheet.

*Demographic data from Quantcast and market share data from comScore.

Image: youthforum