Over the weekend I had the opportunity to read Marketing in the Age of Google, by Vanessa Fox. This great book discusses Google and how it has not only changed the search engine game, but the marketing research game as well. While there were too many great points and anecdotes to discuss every last one, there were two major take-a-way points for me that I’ll talk about here.
The first was this incredible chart produced from an eye tracking study performed by Enquiro. I think the ‘F’ shaped pattern is fairly logical, but actually seeing it is quite remarkable.
Image: Google Images
What this graph shows is that 100% of people will see the top returned result. This is a powerful static because if you can buy the proper search terms or get to the top of the results organically, you have a 100% chance of being in someone’s evoked set. Now, that’s not to say they will purchase something from or site, or even click on your link and visit your site, but if everyone who was looking for a Nikon d7000 camera walked past your brick-and-mortar store front, you can surmise that you’d sell more cameras. Probably, alot more cameras.
The second take-a-way I had is how to find out what keywords to focus on when trying to determine who you want to “walk by your storefront” when searching on Google. Here’s a passage from the book that may educate you on how to go about buying and focusing on strategic words or phrases:
What I like most about this passage is this line: “… he describes the marketing revolution of the 1950s and 60s as a shift to understanding that a “company should produce what people desire, instead of trying to convince them to buy what the company happens to make.”” It really drives home the point that you shouldn’t try forcing your products or your website onto people who don’t need to see it, but those people who can benefit from it, shouldn’t have any problem finding it.
