Mediative recently performed an eye-tracking and click-tracking study to evaluate the value of having a top spot in Google’s local search results. The study supports that the top spots in Google’s local search results get the most attention and clicks. Advertisers and marketers have known this for years and have pointed to studies that demonstrate how the viewer’s eye travels across a page, why it focuses on certain areas and why it stops at a given spot. The purpose of Mediative’s study was to determine how people interact with Google Places results listings. The main questions the study aimed to answer were:

• Where do people look on a page?
• How do they interact with the search results from Google Places listings?
• Do people pay more attention to listings with reviews?
• Do people actually look at the maps?
• Does Google's "Golden Triangle" still receive the most attention?

The Golden Triangle is a visual representation of how a viewer’s eye typically moves around the search results page. The way the eye travels forms … a triangle. It’s “golden” because if you are a business this is where you want to be listed, particularly higher up on the search results page, or at the base of the triangle.  To explain further,

“In much the same as printed material, a viewer's gaze begins at the top of the listing. The eye scans from left to right, as it moves down to subsequent listings. The viewer scanned less of the listing's content the further down the result was located.”

Source: Dave Davies, Google Places: How Eye Tracking Heats Up Conversions and Clicks

The study was comprised of twelve participants who were given an imaginary mission: to take off on a road trip through Canada, stopping off in Hamilton, London, Winnipeg, and Edmonton. In each city, they had to find a place to get a tattoo, based on information they found in Google Places search results.    

Conclusions drawn from the study are as follows:

1. Top listings got the most attention and clicks, unless the lower results had more social signals such as reviews, star ratings, and text snippets. More social signals garnered a high proportion of viewer gaze as did the map.
2. If your website has no social signals and is listed in a position outside of the top of the Google Golden Triangle, it will essentially be ignored.

Takeaways for the local business owner: make sure your business profile information is complete and accurate so that it appears on maps (particularly your location and areas served) and try to get satisfied customers to rate your business on your Google profile.

What sorts of things are factors in your decision-making process when you search for something online? Let us know in the comments below!