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Lots of people talk about how to merchandise online effectively. Linda Bustos at Get Elastic and the folks at GrokDotCom do a particularly good job. But the simplest rule of merchandising came from a good friend: focus on the reasons your customer buys and display your offerings around those reasons. Some reasons?

• Customers who buy new (want the latest fad) vs customers who only buy used (like to get a good deal)
• Customers who only buy things on sale vs. those who like to pay full price (either to impress others or drive their own self-satisfaction)
• Customers who only buy domestic goods vs. customers who like to buy imported
• Customers who always buy name brands vs. those who buy generic
• Customers who buy things they need (required purchases) vs. customers who buy things they want
• Customers who buy things that are scarce vs. customers who buy things that are abundant (looking for good deals)

Any I’ve missed? Tell us about them in the comments. And don’t forget to subscribe to thinks to never miss an update.

This week, thinks has taken a look at the overall size of the social web, how many adults use the social web, how the Marines use social media to boost recruitment and how to use local search to boost your business. To wrap up, we’re going to look at what the rest of the world is saying about the social, mobile, local web. Without further ado, here’s this week’s list of link goodness:

• Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land looks at how local shopping is coming to a mobile phone near you. Greg points out “…this is all near-term stuff. Indeed, the era of product and shopping search on mobile devices is already here.” Sound familiar?
• Laura Ramos at the Forrester Interactive Marketing Blog looks at a recent study of social media among B2B marketers. One of the big takeaways was concern about the lack of tracking. Fortunately, Aaron Uhrmacher at Mashable takes a look at “How to Measure Social Media ROI for Business.” It’s a good look at the topic and worth a read.
• Also at Mashable, security policy adviser Dr. Mark Drapeau looks at how social media may benefit national security. When “Serious People in Washington” and the Marines start taking social media, well, seriously, maybe you should, too.
• Most folks assume involvement in social media means you’ve got to start blogging, Twittering and updating Facebook yourself. While you can, one very effective way to get value from social media is to engage with bloggers and let them talk about you. Toby Bloomberg at the Diva Marketing blog offers an excellent - if long - survey analysis as part of her Blogger Relations Series: A Successful Blogger Relations Strategy. It might take some time to read. But you will get an excellent return on that investment.
• Finally, we’ll close out the week with Matt McGee at Search Engine Land providing another Small Business Marketing Success Story, featuring K9cuisine.com.

Well, before this week goes any further to the dogs, we’ll call it a day. Enjoy your weekend, everyone. And we’ll be back with more goodness next week.

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Maps might be the killer app for mobile, says Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land. Will standalone GPS units go the way of, oh, I don’t know, the folding paper map? More important, is your business showing up on your customers’ mobile maps? This week’s list of links looks at how to make sure you’re always in your customers’ hip pocket. Y’know, right next to where they keep their wallet.

• First up, Read/Write Web looks at Google’s simplified map layout. While MapQuest remains the internet’s most visited mapping tool, Google is coming on strong and these tools will only help customers find businesses. Hopefully yours.
• Speaking of MapQuest, isn’t it weird that almost nobody is. Speaking of MapQuest, that is. The rumors of Microsoft buying AOL have cast a shadow over any positive news from the AOL contingent.
• Finally, Mike Blumenthal - the best read in online map news and local search - looks at interesting trends in how users search for local content. Definitely worth a read.

Have a great weekend folks. See you next week.

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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.

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.

Many companies simply assume paid search, most often through Google, is their best source of business. It’s inherently trackable - and you know how much we love that around here - quick and relatively inexpensive. Customers love it, too. So much so that Marshall Kirkpatrick at Read/Write Web recently wondered whether mainstream users will ever learn about the browser’s address bar because so many searchers use brand terms - or URL’s themselves - as their search terms. But Google, for all its importance, is not the only game in town. Mike Moran looked at it another way, asking what percentage of your traffic should come from search. To Mike, the answer appears to be “the amount that makes your sales go up.” Smart man, Mike is.

The key takeaway here is that Google represents the largest single source of traffic for many businesses because Google also represents the largest site on the internet. But should it be your largest source of traffic? And are you getting your fair share of business from sources like:

• Alternative search engines. Both big players like Yahoo and Live, and smaller, vertical search engines, like Business.com, Yelp and Kayak all fit here.
• Referred traffic. Linking from other sites, whether partners, customers and even competitors.
• Email. Obviously this is more for repeat customers. But they’re lower cost than obtaining new customers. Do you do what’s necessary to keep them coming back?
• Direct navigation. Always a good one. Does your domain (or better yet, domains) match how people think about your brand?
• Social. Finally, do you connect with your customers in other channels?

An effective ecommerce strategy looks at each source of traffic and business to determine the value of customers coming from each. Don’t neglect one channel simply because another (I’m looking at you, Google) drives significant volumes. After all, when you put all your eggs in one basket, you often end up with the yolk on you.

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