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According to the data from Stickyeyes, it achieves twice the organic click share of second-placed Apple.

Technology review site TechRadar comes third with 7.87% of organic click share, which highlights the importance of online reviews for helping to guide consumer purchase decisions.

Amazon also dominates the paid search index with around 26% of click share, followed by Argos with 18%. Tesco, Apple and John Lewis complete the top five with around 10% click share each.

The aggregated results reveal the extent of Amazon’s search visibility for tablets and e-readers compared to its competitors.

To see how the top two retailers are taking advantage of this visibility, I took at a look at their organic and paid search landing pages when searching for tablets…

Amazon

Amazon appeared second in organic search for the keyword ‘tablet’ with a link to its category page. As one would expect from Amazon the page features a huge number of product recommendations based on bestselling items, accessories and ‘most wished for portable PCs’.

There are also filter options so shoppers can narrow the options by brand, price and ‘featured links’.

Amazon’s aggressive pricing is highlighted by the prominent banner for the ‘Christmas deals in electronics’ and the price reductions on all the products displayed on the page.

Overall there are definitely enough options to keep shoppers interested and edge them towards making a sale.

Looking at a PPC landing page, Amazon appears in the paid results on the right of the screen in a search for ‘iPad’.

The landing page features 16 of the most relevant iPad products, a range of filter options and suggestions for related searches.

Amazon also provides a summary of the most important details for each item, star ratings, options for new or used products, stock information and delivery details.

Overall it’s an excellent landing page and includes a range of features that will help to convince shoppers to make a purchase.

For more information on this topic, read our blog post on 14 ways to improve the UX of on-site search results.

Apple

Apple appears in first place in the organic results when you search for ‘iPad’, however I find its landing page to be quite underwhelming.

There isn’t an obvious call-to-action and it uses a carousel, which are proven to have little impact on sales and potentially damage the user experience.

There are options for each of Apple’s iPad products but it lacks the impact of Amazon’s tablet category page. Furthermore, there are three videos just beneath the carousel, the first of which is ‘Watch the keynote’.

Obviously Apple is eager to promote the fan culture around its products and create a sense of wonder and intrigue around its annual announcements, however I would suspect that the average shopper (e.g. my mum) wouldn’t have a clue what the keynote is about.

Apple’s iPad mini ad was the top PPC result in a search for ‘tablet’, edging a misguided ad for Tablet Hotels into second place. However it directs people to the same underwhelming landing page as the organic result for ‘iPad’. 

It could be argued that Apple doesn’t need to put in as much effort to convert visitors as it has created the world’s most popular and iconic tech products that largely sell themselves.

However it’s still a bit disappointing to see Apple remain so aloof and disinterested when it comes to its ecommerce site, bearing in mind the amount of innovation that goes on within the company as a whole.

The method

Dr Meyers launched “Project Algo Alert” last year, which would later become MozCast. The original intention was to measure fluctuations in keyword rankings, but this has evolved into various ‘weather’ stations. 

One of those systems is Feature Alert, which detects when Google launches new search features. The Moz article explains this better than I could. 

As Dr Meyers explains:

A side effect of the system is that, at large scale, it frequently catches Google in the act of testing new features and UI changes. Keep in mind that Google ran 7,018 “live traffic experiments” in 2012 – while we probably capture only a small number of them, these tests allow us to get a glimpse into what’s coming next.

While any given change may be rejected (Google launched just over 9% of the changes they tested last year), some changes appear repeatedly in testing and in different formats over time, strongly suggesting that Google is intent on launch.

Another area to look at is mobile. Google is anxious to repeat its desktop ad success on mobile, so it’s the focus for many UI experiments. 

For example, the yellow text denoting paid ads was recently introduced on mobile, but Google looks to be bringing this to desktop search (see below). 

How will Google change its ad formats? 

Dr Meyers has provided us with a number of screenshots showing future ad formats. 

Yellow ad labels

Here, the ads are marked more prominently with the yellow ‘ad’ text, something Dr Meyers believes is due to the EU settlement, rather than by choice. 

However, while the ads are more clearly labelled, aside from that the ads look more like organic results, as if Google is trying to offset the effect of the label. 

As on mobile, Google is also testing ads at the foot of the search results page:

Ads in slide deck

This is an interesting test, and could be a very big change. With Google’s Knowledge graph, we’re accustomed to seeing useful information related to searches here, such as this one for Newcastle Utd. 

It seems that Google is now testing large paid placements in this area: 

This is potentially a very big change, as these ads don’t really look like ads. In fact, Dr Meyers calls them ‘ads in sheep’s clothing’. 

The product specifications make it look more informational than advertorial, and it could be that Google has been ‘training’ us to look for info on the right hand side to make it more likely that we’ll click there. 

Insurance ads

Here’s another one, for insurance. While the ads have the familiar shading, the presentation is more informational than ad-like. This seems to have been tested and then rolled back:

Is Google attempting to make ads seem less like ads? 

I have suspected that Google has tweaked the background of its paid ads now and then, seemingly to make the ad shading less visible, and therefore more like an organic result. 

It has also been experimenting with banner ads for some brand searches, something which contradicted previous statements from Google. 

Also, the ads for its insurance comparison have done away with the shading, making them a kind of hybrid paid/organic result. 

Dr Meyers also predicts that Google may start to place ads within organic results, rather than sticking to the top and bottom of pages, as it aims to improve their effectiveness. 

I asked him if Google is seeking to make ads less ‘ad-like’: 

Conspiracies aside, the economic reality is that Google is a roughly $60bn company with over 80% of its revenue wrapped up in advertising, and the vast majority of that is click-based.

With consumer behavior on mobile evolving rapidly, there is tremendous pressure on Google to drive more ad clicks. At the same time, it’s under increasing scrutiny from US and EU regulators, so is fighting a difficult war right now. If Google has to give into the EU and label ads, then it’s going to be working hard to offset that with new tactics.

What do you think? Are these changes likely to happen? How will they affect paid search marketing? 

Due to all the recent jet-setting, this post is a little later than planned but we thought in honour of the UK Search Awards this evening, today is as good a day as any to update you with the USA results, wish a belated congratulations and wish tonight’s contestants GOOD LUCK! Huge thanks to Nicky […]

Post from Jackie Hole on State of Digital
USA Search Awards Results 2013