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Here is Ben pictured with the prize of the Geoff Hurst signed shirt.

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...were initially devised as a way of allowing the sale of online content and were envisioned to involve small sums of only a few cents.  These transactions would enable people to sell content on the Internet  and would be an alternative to advertising revenue.  During the late 1990s, there was a movement to create microtransaction standards, and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) worked on incorporating micropayments into HTML, even going as far as to suggest the embedding of payment-request information in HTTP error codes. The W3C has since stopped its efforts in this area,  and micropayments have not become a widely used method of selling content over the internet.

There are lots of signs today that micro-payments could be commonplace in the next 12 months.

A better way of monetising content

But micro-payments offer a middle way to free-for-all or paywall. Let search engines find your content, but charge visitors a premium - per visit.  Subscriptions are too cumbersome to ever get sold on a whim, on getting that emotional flash that something is worth spending upon.  With micro-payments, marketing can be more immediate and payoff sooner.

Whoever it is, the on-line brand will also need to gather data on which websites you visit, what your buying preferences are, what time you like to shop, IP address...data which in Google's case would also augment your search history etc; or social circle etc for Facebook.  If micro-payments are wanted via the mobile, then add to that your location and movements wherever you take your phone, along with whoever was there with you.

Online Brands - who will be defacto micro-payment portal?

But wait - micro-payments already exist - iTunes.  Apple have at their command a well used, location aware, billing system that have already introduced the buying public in sub £1 spending, via apps, mp3s and video.  And with the iPad aimed at becoming the best way to experience the web, that system is at the literal fingertips of the public.  It has the infrastructure of payment processing, but not the web penetration of Facebook.  If Apple ever wanted to step out of its walled garden, say teaming up with Facebook Connect, billions could be made if it became the de-facto online micro-payment system.

Below is a graph outlining how brands are positioned at the moment in becoming the micro-payment popular choice - a position which will demand smooth payment processing combined with high web penetration.

Fig 1 - Web Integation/Payment Processing for major web brands

The current ideal would be combination of iTunes payment infrastructure with integration of a successful Facebook Connect.

Privacy concerns

Perhaps there will be a revolt against this ever expanding personal database on customer habits - a line that can't be crossed by the public, a private mental block to spite increased convenience!

How Micro-payments will affect SEO and PPC

So, if micro-payment for content will emerge soon, how could you as an online marketer prepare for it?

1. Whichever micro-payment portal wins, they'll carry lots of data on customers, so online marketer's should get access to more data to target increasingly tailored audiences -  it is in the companies interests to have that data generate income via advertising, since it is a huge investment to store extrobytes worth of data and something needs to keep the ecosystem alive.  Along with the usual demographics, "likelihood to buy" could be available, given by hidden metrics from current credit balance and buying history (this user is 45% likely to buy your insurance) 
2. Conversion rates will be critical - if micro-payment x conversion rate > CPC , make hay.
3. It'll be a lot more competitive than today.  What now is just an informational query that rarely generates direct sales, will be transformed - big authority websites competing to get you to look more indepth into a subject, accessible via one click of a pay button.
4. Getting any search click-through will be a chance to convert - your search listing will be increasingly important to encourage that conversion.  The ability to look your best in search ads will be critical, encouraging use of microformats and favourable social signals to help improve visibility - all to catch that penny income.
5. Conversions will be a lot quicker and more numerous.  It should be possible to change websites almost on the fly as fluctuations happen in the traffic - a breaking story that is the first to get an exclusive will enjoy the most revenue.  (Think how much £'s TMZ could have made with another Micheal Jackson death)
6. Micro-payments should save journalism.  Good journalism with good marketing should mean a steady trusted income - the distribution of news can be profitable once again.  Blogging industries will rise (AOL?)

Summary

Micro-payments are inevitable once the technology and social acceptance is there, and should grease the wheels of ecommerce enough to create a whole new way of consuming content on the web, one that should be more self sustaining than ever. The price for that may be further erosion of personal privacy, with internet brands knowing more about you than members of your own family, but for many that'll be a price worth giving - will it be for you?

There have been various posts recently looking at the accuracy of the data and on click through rates which I'd like to add to with a look at how different types of searchers interact with the SERPs.

The types of keyphrases I have chosen to look at are Brand, Intent and Research keyphrases.

Three Different Types of Searches

Brand are all those phrases looking for a specific website, including navigational phrases (like ACME and www.acme.com )

Intent I classed as those phrases that signalled intent to purchase - these are phrases that usually include "cheapest", "deals" or "compare" (like "compare blue widgets")

Research I classed as those phrases that were more general information queries with no intent to buy seen (like "what are blue widgets")

The data found that these queries do exhibit different click through rates and user behaviour.

Summary of Results

• Brand queries had a high click through at number 1, as expected, with number 1 taking 46% of clicks.
• Intent queries were lower, showing 31% clicking through to number one.
• Research queries showed an even higher clickthrough rate at number 1, getting 51% of click throughs, but also showing a higher clickthrough rate overall throughout the SERP

Organic Click Through Rate (CTR) Charts

Data was gathered from 630 keyphrases that had CTRs included within the Google Top Search reports.  Websites were a mix of ecommerce based websites varying in size and sectors.  Data and trendlines compiled in Excel2007.

A chart detailing the trend lines is shown below - Blue for Brand, Green for Research and Red for Intent.

(Click on charts for bigger version)

Log trendlines were used as they give the best R² values:

• Research - 0.55
• Intent -  0.75
• Brand - 0.76

Head terms verses Long tail keyphrases

The increased CTR for research phrases seems to hold for head and log tail terms - limiting to keyphrases of phrase length 3 or more produces:

Restricting to head terms of two or less keywords produces:

Overall average CTR and keyphrase length

Taking an average of all keyphrases in a keyword type:

Keyphrase length

• Brand - 1.96
• Inent - 3.14
• Research - 3.57

Click Through Rate - keyword type

• Brand - 25%
• Intent - 16%
• Research - 26%

Conclusions

Based on the above data...

Research keyphrases have an even greater clickthrough rate at the number one position than brand searches, with 51% of users clicking the top spot in the data gathered. However browsers in this mode are using more long tail phrases - typical length of keyphrase was 4.4  Click through rates were also generally higher throughout the SERP, with a user more likely to click on other results.

Users looking to buy seem more cautious clicking through from the SERPs, but still heavily favoured to the top results - CTR for #1 in this section was 31% dropping to 7% by postion #5.  These figures are in general agreement with the recent Chitika study and AOL click through data.

Brand searches are typically two keywords or less, and obviously heavily favoured to the top results.  If you are not ranking number one for your brand, you are losing a lot of traffic.

More info

Let me know in the comments any criticisims and other areas we could look at, if you blog about or use a similar approach to the above let me know via @GuavaUK or email mark.edmondson @ guava.com and I will link to it from this post.  Over time I hope to gather more data to make more accurate predicitions on other factors that may play into behavioual factors in search, such as bounce rates and page view depth.

Other posts looking into organic click through rates in the past include:
Redcardinal AOL data analysis
SEObook CTR post
SEO Scientist looks at Organic CTR and eyetracking studies
More on eyetracking studies