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Yesterday I talked about a new survey that was released recently and what it showed about the way people viewed our websites. That's important to us because we need to know where people's eyes first hit our pages so that we can use that spot to really engage the surfer.

As I said yesterday, the amount of time a surfer spends on a site, before they decide to move on is brief. It can be as little as one-twentieth of a second and so that's the time we have to engage the surfer and make them want to stay and see more.

But what happens when people are looking at a search engine results page? Do their eyes follow the same pattern as for other web pages? Are there any other influences that can affect the way they view a search engine results page?

Researchers and buyers
Well the survey I mentioned yesterday seems to indicate that there are some differences in the way people look at search engine results pages. One of the most important factors that influences the way people look at these pages is what they are doing when they're looking.

The people behind the survey suggest that surfers hit the search engines with one of two purposes in mind. They are either looking for information - researching if you like - or looking to make a purchase and those who are looking to make a purchase may have already spent time researching.

And there is a difference in the way these two groups view a search engine results page. However, you shouldn't rush to any conclusions about that difference because it's not what you might think.

Researchers
This survey seems to show that people who are researching don't spend as much time on a search engine results page as you might expect and they certainly view fewer results than those who are ready to make a purchase.

The eye-flow chart for most of those surveyed who fell into the research group started in the left-hand corner and traveled down the left hand side of the page ... but not very far down the page at all. In fact few of those surveyed looked further down the page than position five or six.

Almost all of those who were doing research stopped and looked at the sponsor links right at the top of the page for a brief period of time; then moved on to the first two organic listings, skipped a couple and then moved on to position five and six.

Slightly more of those doing research viewed the top organic listings than viewed the sponsored listings and well below half of the searchers moved over to the pay-per-click listings over on the right hand side of the page.

Those eye movement figures are important to us because it suggests that as long as we can get our pages up into the top few lines of organic listings then we're in with a good chance of getting the surfer to click through to our sites.

It also highlights the importance of the description that the search engines show for our sites so don't forget to utilize the meta description tag on every page of your sites to entice the surfer to visit your site.

Buyers
I was surprised to see what the survey found about buyers. The results of the survey seem to suggest that buyers spend more time on a site and go further down the page that researchers do.

Most buyers spend time looking at the sponsored listings at the top of the page but quite a few also move further down the page checking out the organic results too and these guys go all the way to the bottom of the first page.

Very few buyers bothered to go across and look at the pay-per-click listings. Perhaps that's indicative of the fact that buyers are not interested in hype at that stage in their buying cycle but are more interested in the facts.

So, once again, getting a good listing in the search engine results pages for your websites is important. Actually getting your site listed on the first page for any term might be good because the genuine buyers are going to possibly look at your site even if it is down at position nine.

But perhaps, because of the nature of our sales, position nine or ten on the first page may be just as bad as not being there at all. Many in our industry will tell you that buying a membership for an adult site is an impulse buy. If that's so then we need to be up where the researchers are looking so we can score those impulse sales.

Has that helped to make things a whole lot clearer for you? Probably not but then that's what makes getting sales in this industry so interesting and challenging. It never gets dull or boring and if you are prepared to think, experiment and evaluate you'll go on making money.