Oftentimes, it’s assumed that if you are at or near the top of organic rankings, that paid search is unnecessary. A recent study by Google conflicts this theory and shows that many of the paid search clicks add valuable incremental traffic to your organic click-throughs.

Some of the statistics reported in the study include:

• 81% of ad impressions and 66% of ad clicks occur in the absence of an associated organic result on the first page of search results. All ad clicks in these situations are incremental.
• On average, for advertisers who appear in the top rank organic slot, 50% of ad clicks are incremental. This means that half of all ad clicks are not replaced by organic clicks when search ads are paused.
• For advertisers whose organic search results are in the 2nd to 4th position, 81% of ad clicks are incremental. For advertisers appearing in organic position of 5 or lower, 96% of ad clicks are incremental.

Additional information can be found in this handy infographic:

By complementing your organic rankings (or lack thereof) with paid search, not only does it help you take up more first page real estate and get additional messaging in front of you potential visitors, but the data shows that it will actually drive substantial incremental traffic to your site. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that ranking towards the top of the first search page means your job is done. Take your site traffic to the next level integrating paid search into your digital marketing strategy.