Why do search engines get all the credit for driving online behavior when publishers are the kings of content? + GOOGLE SEARCH EXPERTISE

 

 

 

AS CONSUMERS we... consume information in the form of news, opinions, entertainment, etc. The latter isn’t typically considered as part of the purchase funnel butit’s important to expand the definition of information consumption – what we’re reading, watching and/or listening to - when thinking about what drives intention.

The consumer is more empowered with information than ever before.  Think about the last time you made any major purchase decision – a new camera, where to go on vacation, or what accountant to hire. Should I take that new job? Should I buy that car? Most likely you began your quest for an answer with a search engine. Once there, you start a discovery process, then process the information you found, weigh the opinion, and then eventually move towards a decision.  Once the decision is made, you likely go back to the search engine to look for a brand, a product, or a service to purchase.

 

Today’s “Meta Curator”

We, as consumers of information, have all become what I refer to as “meta-curators.” We can literally access unlimited amounts of content and more often than not from anywhere and at any time (unless of course you’re on a United flight that still hasn’t gotten around to installing wi-fi).  Our ability to access and process content drives the need for curating. There is simply too much content coming at us too quickly to keep up with it all.  It’s too easy to get overwhelmed with information, and having access to more information doesn’t necessarily make us smarter or help us make better decisions.

With all of this information at our fingertips, most of us began curating for our own, private use. Collecting information in buckets (folders), making lists of sites, web pages and posts to stash away for midnight reading (or on a plane without wi-fi). From bookmarking sites to building folders, everyone developed their own approach to organizing valuable content to reference at a later date. The difference between how we organize content today compared to a few years ago is how we share the content we collect. The process of sharing has made us meta-curators. Whatever your poison – Delicious, Google+ , Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook – we, as consumers of information, have become obsessed with sharing online.    

Sharing enabled us to tap into other curators – initiating the phenomenon of social consuming.  Today people read an interesting article or stumble upon a cool infographic and immediately share it – on Twitter, Google+, RSS feeds, Facebook, and more. Content that’s curated in this manner – through social public sharing sites – is consumed by people that don’t necessarily know each other but have similar interests.They’re connected by their “interest graph” vs. their social graph. As interests evolve so does the interest graph and the intent to consume follows. More often than not, consumption of content doesn’t start and end on the same trajectory. It’s vectored based on the act of discovering and learning. The content consumed helps us uncover new information that ultimately influences the outcome of purchasing behavior.

How Content Drives Intent

In the online media world where I spend the vast majority of my time, intent is oftentimes synonymous with search.  “I search, therefore I intend.”  A foursquare version of this would be “I check-in, therefore I intend.”  Both are a red herring that fundamentally underestimate the value of true intent built during the content phase.

We form the decision-making process during and around the act of consuming content.  We seek, or stumble, into information that interests us.  We dig deeper because we’re engaged by the content.  Its authenticity, opinion, or perhaps even its entertainment value is what grabs us.  We discover and then we begin moving towards a decision.

The true intent path is a bell curve:

The x-axis represents elapsed time, and the y-axis represents a relative degree of influence.  People spend way more time in the content phases of the intent path (discovery, opinion, decision) than the bookends (navigation, transaction) that drive intention.

So, if content is the chief intent influencer, why then does the search engine get all the credit for the conversion?  Shouldn’t the publisher of the content that’s driving purchase behavior get the lion’s share of credit?  After all, they did the research, assembled the background materials, wrote the drafts, took the photos and videos, and edited the final copy that ultimately influenced the consumer purchase behavior.  Publishing regular, valuable content that helps consumers make purchase decisions is no easy task. Let’s give the publishers the credit they deserve when it comes to the role they play in consumer intent. 

 

source: Walter Knapp, COO Lijit Networks
 

A: While CONTENT definitely drives readers/clicks,
pattern keyword FREQUENCY across STRATEGIC CHANNELS drives SEO RESULTS.

Vincent Medina
Managing Director

Tags: Best PracticesGoogleSearchExpert  Domination  Santa Monica  Los Angeles  SEO

 

 

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PAY ATTENTION to Search Engine Rankings:
Top 3 Spots on Google Get 58% of Clicks.

Here’s a reason to pay more attention to your search engine rankings – the top three spots onGoogle get 58% of clicks. 

Optify (via Searchengine watch) carried out a study, which showed that websites at the top of Google get an average of 36.4% of clicks, those in second place 12.5% and those in third 9.5%.

That chimes in with an earlier Chitika study, showing that the no 1 spot on Google gets 34.35% of traffic.
Optify also says that being any further back than page two has no real business value for you at all.

Not surprisingly, as I work for a social media agency, I am a big believer in SEO + social working together.
For example, Comscore has shown that 50% of ‘social media exposed’ surfers search for product terms every day compared to 33% of non-exposed surfers.
In other words, SEO can help improve your rankings but social media can prompt them to try and find out more in the first place.

Then of course, the search engine giants themselves are constantly looking for ways to embrace so-called ‘social search.’

The San Francisco Chronicle has a good summary of how search engines are tapping into social.
As (MIcrosoft) Bing’s Paul Yiu says in the piece, “search up until recently has been a lonely experience.
We want to introduce people as an important part of search.”
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DOMINATE 1st Page Google Search Results!

CLICK for GOOGLE RESULTS 

After all, the importance of innovative SOCIAL MEDIA (SM) and worthwhile content, is in it's opportunity for creating VAST PRESENCE throughout the WEB.
This leading to DOMINANT VISIBILITY.

Thank you,

Vincent Medina
Managing Director
ArtfulMind.Biz | 310 251 9728

Expert: Advertising + Business Process Improvement + Design + Direct Mail + Marketing + Printing + SEO/Link-Building + Social Media

 

~ 15+ Years DELIVERING innovative creative solutions + print/online project management + clean efficient design + effective/measurable results + strategic sourcing + qualitative production + quantitative cost reduction.
~ Printing | Social Media | Creative | Business Process Improvement | Marketing | Google Search Expert/Domination | SEO/Link-Building | Advertising | Business | Realtors | Marina del Rey | Santa Monica | Los Angeles | S CA.