While running searches of the past couple of days I noticed a little blue arrow beside the first result, either paid or organic. At first I thought it was a new test Google was running in the AdWords algorithm. My initial thought was this was something Google was doing to “reward” 1st position ads with something to attract the users eye… and ultimately their click.
It turns out, the arrow is related to the new Google Instant change that was implemented a couple of weeks ago. The arrow allows a user to use their keyboard to navigate through the search results by pressing the down arrow on their keyboard.
I am of the opinion that 1st position ads will see benefit from this feature for two reasons. First, any slight variation to ad text tends to have a positive effect on CTR. I’ve seen this by using the ” »” character in ad text. Similarly, in tests using sub-links, product extensions in Adwords ads, the CTR has increased. The same applies to the addition go Google Checkout icons in ads. Secondly, as the arrow is part of keyboard functionality, where users can scroll through the search results (paid and organic) and navigate by pressing the enter key, users with quick “trigger fingers” could inadvertently hit enter after a search and thus click the 1st ad in the list.
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