View Posts by Client Learning for Better Website Conversion
I was at one of my favorite internet marketing learning centers yesterday and began to indulge myself in the latest news. It is fascinating how sophisticated the internet is becoming. Automated technologies are becoming human-like.
Search engines such as Google are trying to get in the minds of visitors. Think about the last time you entered something into Google search and accidentally misspelled it. Google responds with "Did you mean…". I know, that’s pretty simple and easy for a search engine to do right? Hang on a sec, that’s the tip of the iceberg.
The next time you’ve got a few extra moments on your hands try having a bit of fun with Google search. Let me give you a few examples of Google understanding phrases like a human. These are just a couple samples that are a results from the experiments that I have conducted recently.
Enter the Phrase "There is no free lunch"
Most people would not even notice the fact the Google understood the context of what I meant. In the top ten result pages I checked there were no pictures of dinner, articles on your favorite restaurant, lunch plates, lunches or food of any sort for that matter. GOOGLE knows that I want to know about the phrase theorem. That is humanlike!! What is going on here?
Enter the Phrase "Chocolate"
At least when I did this search, Hershey’s was found it the top ten results (3rd). How did Google know this page was about chocolate when the word "chocolate" was not found on the page anywhere when I originally queried Google? Today, I notice the Hershey’s website has been updated and has the word Chocolate once. What’s going on here? How important is on-page optimization and keyword usage?
There Must be Humans that are Controlling the Search at Google!
We all know that’s not the case really. In fact, it is engineering brilliance at work. Google delivers over 200 million daily searches. Out of those searches Amit Singhal (Google engineer) has publicly stated 50% of them are unique. Without me getting into a ton of technical jargon that generally results in…HUH, let me tell you why this matters to you. It matters because it effects how you market your business to search engines now and in the future. The days of easy organic ranking are GONE. In order to market your business to search engines an understanding of how Google knows the answer to the above examples is A MUST.
I am one of the mad scientists at TechWyse that conducts many experiments designed to get into the minds of Google engineers. I am not suggesting that I have the inside line here because I don’t. Having said that, all of the experiments conducted seem to lead into one particular area of interest…VISITOR ENGAGEMENT. What if Google measures the length of time people spend on websites? Would that not be one of the most meaningful and telling methods of determining where a site should rank? Forget about page structure, keywords, content rich articles or in-links. One of Google’s primary search objectives is to serve highly related results to the searching populous, get rid of spam and duplicate content. Call me crazy but the cleanest, most natural way to do this is learn where people are spending all their time and WHY?
Based on high level sophistication that is now a cold hard fact of internet marketing, yours truly has decided to build a public internet marketing learning center. Most of this learning is opinion and speculation with foundation. It is in video and text format. This learning center will be updated regularly, so bookmark it if you find useful information here. Because I believe that visitor engagement is the most critical part of internet marketing that is where the journey begins.
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6 Responses to “Client Learning for Better Website Conversion”
I wonder if any one would ever break Google’s Algorithm code. The bottom line is to develop a website with large, unique content aimed to benefit the end user and the end user only. The rest will follow. Google will do justice to the end user only; good genuine content is all that matters.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Robert, are you trying to say that Google measures the duration of time spent by a user on a website, as an indication of its uniqueness and usefulness. But then don’t you feel this is open to manipulation? Will Google pitch for this? I wonder.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
tmhanks06: Everything Google makes can be broken, but it is very difficult. The engineers road test algos vigoriously before they roll them out. Unfortunately their testing does not always match up to all scenarios in the real world!
Robert
June 10th, 2008 at 8:57 am
bonifaceh3: I am trying to say that Google is finding other ranking factors because they have to. Look at what has happened with links! How manipulated is that now? Eventually, I can see less and less ranking weight put on incoming links because of the abuse and manipulation.
What other ranking factors do we think Google can depend on?
Robert
June 10th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Getting to the minds of visitors and providing them with relevant documents is the next logical step in the advancement process of search engines. I agree with you Robert, the days of easy organic rankings through manipulation and deceptive practices are numbered if not gone. The bottom line is that search engines will go and find websites with good genuine content useful to the user. That’s the end story. Nice article. Great reads overall by you!
June 10th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
[...] In marketing and email marketing there must always be a way of measuring conversion. With affiliate marketing and pay per click campaigns the page the visitor lands on must have a clickable item with a clear call to action. This page is a page where the visitor is looking for the next step. Where is your big red bull flaring his nostrils? For effective online advertising the easiest way to understand the concept is the big red bull and conversion rate are best friends on your landing page. A media professional will always ensure visitors can quickly scan and arrive at the magic 5 seconddecision to move through the funnel to conversion. [...]
Improve Landing Page Conversion Rate | Rise to the Top Blog
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:06 pm