"Our new blue widget is just 5mm long"
"So what?"
"Well, it's the smallest we've ever made"
"So what?"
"Well, it means you can save space in your design"
"So what?"
"Well, you can produce a more compact unit"
"So what?"
"Well, a lighter unit means increased efficiency"
"So what?"
"Well, your customers are demanding lower running costs"
"True…"

The feature? Your new blue widget is just 5mm long. The benefit? Your customers will be able to meet their customers' demands for lower running costs.

That's more like it.

Why "so what" is so useful

OK, fair enough. But what about Google's results pages? As we all know, for many generic product searches, it's not uncommon to see almost nothing but ads, without scrolling. A best, you might see a solitary "natural search" entry at the bottom of the page:

Many people, stung by this iniquity, have suggested that Google gets its own house in order. But I disagree. Google isn't a "content" site, it's an index. And in many cases, people are better served by ads than by random links.

Take another look at the page above. If you'd just typed in "panasonic tv", my guess is that you either wanted some information from the Panasonic website about its TVs, or you wanted to buy one. And that's exactly what Google's providing. The natural search result at the bottom of the page is the Panasonic website. And the ads which surround it are the places to buy your TV.

Suppliers cry foul because they're getting so much less traffic from the free natural search results. Gone are the days when they could get to the top of the page by spending a few pounds on "SEO". Now they have to advertise, at a cost, to be the first name people see. However, the winners from this arrangement are either side of the chain. Google wins because its gets the advertising revenue (and why shouldn't it?). And I'd argue that the customers win, because if they want to buy a TV, they'd rather see the ads from the retailers actively selling them, than they would a list of retailers randomly ordered by Google, which is what we used to get.

If you want to be at the top of the Google results nowadays, you're going to have to pay for the privilege. But in return, you get to craft your own message. And the results can prove to be a very good investment indeed.

Google – just providing what its users want

There has been some talk in the last few days that Google is extending the concept to put company logos next to the relevant results, which would be of interest to a lot of us. Here's what they have to say (and note the – rare – correct use of the most overused word of the last year, 'iconic'):

Today, we’re launching support for the schema.org markup for organization logos, a way to connect your site with an iconic image. We want you to be able to specify which image we use as your logo in Google search results.

However, despite the implications you might draw from that, Google is not planning to start putting logos next to your company's results in the same way as it has for authors. What the announcement above refers to is the rather odd panel Google calls the "Knowledge Graph" which appears top right in the results for certain searches, usually those with Wikipedia entries (below). And should you be the lucky recipient of one of these, you can already specify your logo by having a related Google+ page. The new announcement just provides an alternative way of pointing the search engine towards your official logo.

That said, I'm going to add this markup to my business website, because you never know when and where Google might start making use of the data. It's a small addition which can't do any harm.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog announcement

Google is not putting logos next to your company's results

As a reminder, here are our four paths for the final time:

The third column of arrows are people who come straight to your website as a result of seeing an advert or some other promotion, including PR. If whatever caused them to come through is on the web or in an email, you'll be able to set up the link to be able to see its source, which is helpful in ROI analysis. What you can also set up is a landing page which corresponds to the offer, and makes visitors feel comfortable that they're in the right place. Naturally, it'll have a good call to action too.

If whatever sent the people direct to your website is in print, you need to do your utmost to get people to the right page. Creating short redirected links which they might consider typing in is a big help. But for the many people who'll just type in the domain (home page), a clear link there is important too. For example, a large company exhibiting a small part of its range at WidgetEx'13 might create a special page on its website linking to just the relevant products, and call that page www.bluewidgetcompany.co.uk/we13 (or use that as a shortcut to the page). Then it would promote that link at the show. For prospects who still might only type in www.bluewidgetcompany.co.uk there would be a clear link (incorporating the show's logo) on the home page.

As for our fourth group of people, who are alerted to your company "offline" and who choose to contact you without going through the website, the normal rules of good customer service apply. How courteously are telephone calls answered? How quickly are emails replied to? Anecdotally, I'd suggest things aren't as good as most companies would like to think they are.

Making the path to enquiry straightforward (2)

As a reminder, here are our four paths again:

The leftmost path represents the Google "product searchers". Your first task here are to ensure that Google shows the right page in its results, by setting all the relevant indicators. If you're ranking well for "blue widgets" in Google, but it's not showing the page which you'd really like people to see first (maybe it's showing the home page), then you need to ensure there's a good, clear link to your preferred page on the one which is showing.

The second task is to ease the transition from reading about the product to making an enquiry. I've written about this many times, but most web sites have shortcomings in this respect. If somebody wants to call you, making them find an obscure "contact us" page and then forcing them through a series of maps to find details of their local office in tiny type is not going to give an impression of a helpful supplier. And of course if they want to email you, let them have your email address, or at least a form which doesn't resemble completing a tax return.

The other set of enquirers who come through Google are represented in the second column of arrows. These are the people who are alerted to your offer by an advert, PR, or personal contact, but who choose to type your company name into Google as the next step. As I mentioned last week, this might be the largest single group for many companies. So how do we encourage them to get to the enquiry stage?

The important thing here is to realise that by typing your company name into Google, they're going to end up on your website's home page. Now, on a given day, you might well be able to predict what large numbers of these visitors are after. Perhaps you've put a blue widget brochure offer in a magazine, or done a direct mailshot about a particular product. If you're truly going to maximise the number of enquiries coming through this route, you need to link to a relevant page clearly and specifically on your home page. Expecting people to click around the site trying to find the product or offer is a recipe for disaster. Message panels on your home page which can direct prospects to the right place are an essential part of any proactive website.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the two paths above which don't come through Google.

Making the path to enquiry straightforward (1)