How can “The Philosophy of Google” double your business? (part 2 of 11)

From the desk of Roy Furr, July 7th, 2008

From “Ten things Google has found to be true:”

1. Focus on the user (customer) and all else will follow

It’s easy to get caught up on the dollar (whether for yourself or your company’s stakeholders).

When this happens, it is often at the expense of customer or user experience. Which takes away from long-term business growth opportunity.

A better approach is to constantly be seeking out how to make the customer experience of doing business with you a better, quicker, easier, more enjoyable experience. Then, customers will become very loyal and return, even without advertising expense on your part. (Coming from an advertising guy, of all folks!)

Here’s how Google does it:

• The interface is clear and simple.
• Pages load instantly.
• Placement in search results is never sold to anyone.
• Advertising on the site must offer relevant content and not be a distraction.

Most of these probably don’t apply directly to your business. But the idea behind them does. So find a way to make the idea work, because a happy customer will tell friends.

Posted in Business, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Philosophy of Google, Website Design | No Comments »

Google Website Optimizer… in cartoons?

From the desk of Roy Furr, July 4th, 2008

This year Tom Leung — Google’s product manager for Google Website Optimizer — presented at Ken McCarthy’s System Seminar. As Tom spoke, System faculty member Sean D’Souza scribbled away a few cartoons to illustrate the points Tom was making.

The points include:

• Testing can help you win the tortoise-hare race by helping you make more effective landing pages than your competitors.
• Bad landing pages are like crash zones!
• It’s easy to get really excited — overzealous? — about testing, once you get into it. (”Guilty as charged, your honor!”)
• If you want big results, then test BIG, BOLD changes.
• Don’t act too quick on early results.
• Yes, the 80/20 rule applies to testing too — it’s often better to do a couple quick split tests, rather than doing too-advanced, too-complex multivariate or Taguchi tests. Getting in, getting out, and getting results is profitable!

To see the cartoons, check them out on the Official Google Website Optimizer Blog:

http://websiteoptimizer.blogspot.com/2008/07/you-know-testing-is-going-mainstream.html

Enjoy!

Roy

UPDATE: Look in the comments below — Sean stopped by and linked to a page with a few other cartoons from this same series. It appears Google left a few on the cutting room floor!

Posted in Google Website Optimizer, Marketing Testing | 1 Comment »