This post is long overdue but it’s still resonating in my head and therefore must be written (lol). A few weeks back, I penned a post about using the blogosphere to mine consumer-driven keywords from free text-analysis tools available on the web. In the post, I described the difference between what consumers say about your brand versus the internal verbiage used by employees and the ability to adjust search campaign spend appropriately based on consumers thoughts about your brand.
Its particularly interesting in the light of a May 19th post by Gerry Bavaro on the Mediapost Search Insider Blog. (here) In the article, he points out that analytics for search are one of the main factors of the rise of search and its huge spending forecast for the coming years.
I find it very interesting that when most people focus on the analytics of search they tend to look at the primary functions while completely ignoring the underlying causes. For example, we all get so focused on clicks we forget to wonder why someone clicks on a particular ad.
The psychology of the click is an integral part of understanding the nature of everything from visitors intent to consumers relationships with products. Why someone clicks, is the foundation of online advertising and could be considered the special sauce. It gives valuable insights into your brand’s position via the consumers mindset and motive when seeking out your services.
Lets face it, the closer you get to your consumer’s mindset, the better you will be in the long run.
To contrast the “psychology of the click” we should also look at the “psychology (or the power) of the back button” - it is amazing how sometimes one lands on a site (by clicking something) and just within seconds decides that it is not something that they were interested in. Perhaps this is why visual search engines like searchme look like an interesting alternative. Also, I wonder how the notion of a “click” is changing in this AJAXified world? Interesting post and links, Thanks! I enjoyed clicking through and reading them
@akshay - thats a great idea. It makes me wonder how much thought jakob nielsen or someone concerned with usability looks into why people make certain choices. I would think that AJAX is changing click behavior as we know it and maybe one day the click goes away.