Useful analysis from Search Engine Watch on who clicks on what search engine results, quoting new research from Compete.com.
85% of all listings shown are organic, with 15%. Overall, 55% of search engine results pages have ads. When it comes to clicks on those organic listings, 53% go to the top result. The second sees 15% of the action, the third 9%, the fourth 6 percent, dwindling all the way down to 4 percent to round out the top 5.
Paid listings perform far better at the top, as well. Not necessarily the top of the ad block, but the top of the page as a whole.
The first listing at the top of the page gets an overwhelming 59 percent of all paid search clicks.
Compete’s research shows that 61% of paid search ads are displayed in the right sidebar. Yet these ads get just 13 percent of the clicks. Sure, you want to be on top in the right ad block; the top listing on the right gets 4 percent of all paid search clicks, while the second gets just 3 percent.
The full report is here: http://success.compete.com/seeing-between-the-lines-of-the-search-and-the-click-whitepaper