thinks

How much of your traffic comes from Google? What would you do if you it stopped?

Every so often, Google updates its index, pulling people, do-si-do, into the Google Dance. Unfortunately, when Google swings its partner, you’re as likely to end up in the bleachers as on the dance floor. That’s what happened to me, briefly, yesterday. I fell from the first spot for my name, to the bottom of the second page.

Google Dance Before

Google Dance After

Fortunately, folks still found me. How?

Take a look at the search results again. Due to active profiles in multiple social networks, I stayed in the first spot via a LinkedIn profile. And the second, via an SEOmoz.org profile. And the sixth (Twitter) and eighth (Technorati). So, anyone looking for me was able to find me, even if they didn’t get directly to my website. Which begs the question: Do you have profiles for you or your business in these - or other appropriate - places? Last week we looked at alternate sources of traffic besides Google. Take a look. Or, you might end up a wallflower at the next dance.

What other sources of traffic work for you? Tell us about them in the comments below. And make sure you add thinks to your favorite reader to never miss an update.

I watched a little TV this morning. In the back of a taxi. And I say a little, not just because the screen was small, but because after a couple minutes of watching promo after promo for NBC shows, I gave up and went back to my mobile newsreader.

ABC offers TV news in cabs, too. I watch those all the time. The difference is NBC offers non-stop commercials while ABC has news, movie and restaurant reviews, basically everything you’d need to get to know New York City a little bit better. If I was a tourist, guess which network I’d be more interested in watching?

So why is NBC doing this? Don’t they get it? Apparently not. Good thing you’re not like them, right?

The problem many traditional advertisers have is putting their message ahead of the message their customers care about. Me, I wanted to hear the weather, not get another soft-focus shot of Brian Williams telling me why I should get my political news from his employer. As David Kushman explained so well on /Message last week, your customers have better things on their mind than your billboards.

How can you cut through this clutter? Can you get your customers to pay attention? Sure. Do what ABC does on it’s little taxi TV’s:

1. Listen to what matters to your customers. If I’m tooling around New York, movies, restaurants, and weather are exactly the sort of thing that I’m going to care about. You can do the same. Social networks, surveys and plain old face-to-face discussions give a great picture of what’s on your customer’s mind.
2. Speak with both logic and emotion. Yes, your customers are smart. But they also care. Deeply. Give them something to care about. ABC uses interviews with restaurateurs, actors and directors in selling its stories. Do the same. Make them care.
3. Address the benefits of your product to your customers’ needs. Now a little taxi TV aligns perfectly. After all, it beats listening to the cabbie’s cell phone conversation. But you can do the same. It doesn’t matter what your product does. It matters why your customer would care. So tell them.

Is it a foolproof system? Yes. At least as close as they come. Listening to your customer and carrying on a conversation with them about what they care about works. And, you don’t have to worry about potholes. Or your customers changing the channel.

How are you getting your customers to listen? Tell us about it in the comments below. And make sure you subscribe to thinks to never miss an update.

Alan Rimm-Kaufmann clearly spends lots of time looking at how sites get customers to buy. Yesterday, he offered a telling view of the verbiage used for coupon codes on one site. Or should I say voucher codes? As Alan notes, “As a consumer, when I see ‘coupon code’ smack dab in the middle of checkout, I feel obligated to break flow and open a new Firefox tab to google ‘retailer.com coupon’ to see if I can save some money.” How true. So the company didn’t do that. They provided the option, but in a way that doesn’t distract from the goal.

Getting your customers to do what you want takes real focus on your customer. And on what they want. Which is not the same as focusing on what you want.

As Alan discusses, sometimes changes this small are tough to test. My group once A/B-tested different verbiage on a call-to-action button and saw absolutely no difference in conversion. But, I’ve seen exactly the opposite on plenty of occasions, too. In fact, if you think changes this small never matter, check out this old Bryan Eisenberg column on Clickz.com. Bryan showed two tests and challenged readers to determine which variable from the following list cut conversion by 90%:

1. Closed space between top “Proceed to Checkout” button line and next line.
2. Removed top “Continue Shopping” button.
3. Removed “Update” button underneath the quantity box.
4. Moved “Total” box down a line. Text and amount appear in different boxes.
5. Above the “Total” box is a “Discount” box, with amount in a box next to it.
6. Above “Shipping Method” line is “Enter Coupon Code” with a box to enter it.
7. New “Recalculate” button left of “Continue Shopping.”
8. Bottom tool bar now on two lines.
9. Shopping cart icon one space closer to the words “Shopping Cart.”

(Unfortunately, it looks like the screenshots in the original article have been taken offline, but I’m looking into getting copies of them).

Bryan provided the answer to the quiz here. Surprised?

Your customers’ motivations are not the same as yours, sadly. You want to sell a product, generate a call, capture an email, launch a program. Your customers, however, want to solve their problem. And anything you do that gets between them and the solution costs you a sale. Don’t be afraid to test. Let the market tell you when you get it right. The point isn’t to do what everyone else does. Or to have all the answers. It’s to find what works for your customers. And that’s what works for your business.

What do you want your customers to do? Is it working? Tell us about it in the comments below. And make sure you add thinks to your favorite reader to never miss an update.

You gotta love Seth Godin. The man has a gift for turning complex topics into a pithy phrase (a la “All Marketers are Liars,” “Purple Cow,” and the like). He just did it again. Seth tells a great story about a “strategist” who asked what software was needed to build a website. In his fashion, Seth titled the story, “I need to build a house, what kind of hammer should I buy?”

Two of the most popular posts here on thinks compared tools for building your business’ website and looked at additional entries into the small business hosting space. So, why don’t we do more of ‘em? Well, we will. But, the real reason is, as Seth reminds us, the tools don’t matter. Sure, bad tools can hurt you. But the wrong strategy hurts more.

And check out these posts to help you think about whether you’ve got the right strategy:

• Forrester POST Method review
• What is e-commerce, anyway?
• Does your e-commerce strategy have the right goals?
• When does marketing become sales?
• What sales channels matter most?
• What page is your home page? Is it the same for all customers?
• Do you have the right pricing strategy?

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Dreamhost has moved me to a new server. Email or tweet me if performance still looks poor. And thanks for your patience.

OK, so now we’re having a debate about what to call these troubled times, whether recessionary or not. I say, who cares? There’s work to do, customers to find, product to produce. Let’s look this week at ways to save money doing it.

• First up, we’ve got regular thinks favorite Linda Bustos from Get Elastic with not one, but two thoughts on how to save money on your search marketing. Early this week, Linda looked at how Google Analytics can cost you money in your AdWords spend. And, if that wasn’t enough, she followed up with an insightful examination of whether to remove keywords with low clickthrough rates.
• One argument Linda makes against dropping low conversion rate terms in her article is their contribution to offline sales. Holly Buchanan from GrokDotCom follows up with a good look at just how tied search is to the offline sales. Saving money on terms may cost you sales in other channels. So, choose wisely.
• The good guys at GigaOM take a look at 15 sites to cut your startup operating costs. And those of your more established business, too.
• And, lastly, Mike Moran picks up on my thoughts about how customers use mobile phones with a key point about costs limiting usage. He writes, “as long as carriers are charging by the minute or the megabyte…people will be careful about how much they browse on their cell phones.” Of course, the recent surge in metered internet charges might do the same to the PC-based web. So, obviously, one way to keep your costs down is to avoid the folks intent on soaking you for access.

See you next week folks. And remember to subscribe to thinks today to never miss an update.