| Wake Up and Smell the Optimization |
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| Monday, 30 July 2007 | |
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Just because you think you know a thing or two about search engine optimization and online marketing doesn't mean there isn't a little bit of room to learn. That's what Shari Thurow explains today in her ClickZ article: SEO Epiphanies. Shari talks about the real life experiences that cause a light bulb to go off over your head and how they can change your perspective on how you market your site. Shari breaks her own experiences down by sharing three key learning points that changed the way she does business online. The second one, "Search is not a Linear, Singular Behavior" harps on an idea I've been trying to beat people over the head with for years myself. Shari says: I'm still amazed that many intermediate and advanced SEO professionals continue to believe search is a linear process, even though they're presented with search behavior data year after year. In an ideal world, searchers would: 1. Type keywords in a search engine (querying behavior). Web analytics data and usability test results show people view multiple pages before making a final purchase. Site visitors aren't going to hand over personal information (name, address, credit cart numbers, etc.) until they're sure your Web business is credible and secure. One page view won't accomplish that credibility. I continue to be astounded at how many site owners think they only need to measure the direct conversion rates on their SEO, SEM and other forms of online marketing. They fail to grasp the idea of multiple visitors prior to purchase. Just this weekend, a friend that works in a high end jewelry retail store was telling me about their last sales meeting. She said the company continually reminds them that the average buyer will visit three stores before making a purchasing decision. It's no different only really...though you may have a user visiting half a dozen or more sites before making a purchasing decision. If you aren't targeting your buyers at every stage of the search buying cycle, you are passing up sales opportunities. Shari goes on to deliver a wake up call in terms of usability. After all, a number one Google ranking and eleventy billion incoming links won't do you a lick of good if your conversion rate is 0.0%. I'll never forget my first usability test as an observer. I never usability test my own interfaces because I'm not objective about my own designs, but I do usability test others' interfaces. Because it was my first usability test, I worked with an experienced facilitator. Maintaining an objective demeanor is no easy task. It certainly takes practice. You don't want to lead usability test participants to do what you want them to do. You have to observe their actual, unassisted behavior. It was a good thing usability test participants couldn't see my facial expressions during that first usability test experience. Everything Jared Spool, Jakob Nielsen, and Eric Schaffer have said about usability testing unfolded before my eyes. People expressed how "cool" something was about the interface, yet none made a purchase. Bam! The difference between a focus group and usability testing -- marketing professionals and brand evangelists can preach their focus group results all they want. The bottom line is, site visitors didn't "Add to Cart." I listened to test participants say they were going to click a link, then watched as they clicked a different link. I saw the results of eye tracking. People may look at something on a Web page, but still not take a desired action. This doesn't surprise me in the least. I've built plenty of sites following all the right "rules" of site design only to watch in utter disbelief as a test user struggled to do what they wanted to do on the site. (It doesn't matter how much you think they SHOULD be able to figure it out, it only matters that they can't.) Having tried to hack my way through dozens of horridly unusable sites over the years to make a purchase, I can assure you that it was only through my absolute determination to buy a specific product from a specific site that I made it to the checkout. I've probably abandoned items I honestly wished to buy on a hundred or more sites over the years. All because I didn't want the item bad enough to justify the frustration. I had my own search marketing epiphany about two years ago when I was working on the Zero Dollars series. While I'd always understood the value of the long tail of links in terms of ranking and indexing boosts, I'd never really grasped the true value of those links in terms of traffic and sales potential until that project. To this day, the greatest majority of buyers and blog commenters on The Lactivist come in one or two at a time from thousands of blogs, discussion threads and web site links. Have you had a search marketing epiphany yet? If not, keep an eye out. It's only a matter of time. Read more at: http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchbrief/senews/010404.html. Comments (0)
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