What’s Google’s hidden agenda on ConversionUniversity.com?

From the desk of Roy Furr, Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

The blogosphere has been buzzing with news of ConversionUniversity.com, Google’s recently-launched site on how to make your website perform better — in SEO, SEM, PPC, Analytics, website testing, and more. So what’s the deal?

What’s Google up to?

Why do they want to give all this free information on how to make your website make you more money (even if it’s not an e-commerce site)? Why aren’t they charging for this info?

Here’s my take.

Google — for as long as they’ve been in business — has been all about giving users the best possible experience. It’s been the secret to their success.

Every time Google changes their algorithms — the infamous ‘Google Slap‘ — it always works out in the favor of the website owners who are already giving a superior customer experience, and punishes those who diminish the customer experience.

They really want you to have a good customer experience on your website — and one way for you to do that is to have increased traffic, and increased conversions. Increased traffic means your site is more relevant to visitors — it appears to fill their need when it shows up in the search engine (either paid or organic). If Google shows searchers sites that are more relevant to what they’re searching for, Google’s doing their job, and they’re happy.

Another way to improve your customer experience is actually to sell more — increase your conversion rate. Here’s how this works. If you’re converting more of your website visitors into customers, that means a higher percentage of website visitors actually found what they wanted when they visited your website. If Google directed them to the site where they could find what they wanted, then Google did their job, and they’re happy.

Similar to selling more and getting more traffic, just keeping traffic on your site longer with more and better content keeps Google happy — again, if you’re keeping the people who found your site through Google happy, then Google is happy too.

And finally, the hidden profit motive.

Google knows that if they educate you about how to do better in SEO, SEM, PPC, Analytics, website testing, and everything else they have their fingers in, that you’ll be more likely to use their paid services such as AdWords.

It’s an old law of persuasion and selling — the law of reciprocity. When someone gives something to us without an obvious motive of getting something in return, we feel obligated deep down to actually return the favor. It’s the secret behind all educational marketing (and it’s something you can use too).

Google’s flooding us with information on how to profit more by using their services. This, in turn, encourages us to use their services. And they profit more.

Anything wrong with this?

I don’t think so. They’re using these persuasion principles in an honest and ethical manner. And if you ask, they’re pretty open about why they provide so much education.

Maybe there’s something we can all learn from this…

More info:

http://www.ConversionUniversity.com

Enjoy!

- R

P.S. — Here’s another great resource: How to Use Google Website Optimizer.

Tags: ConversionUniversity.com, how to make your website perform better, SEO, SEM, PPC, Analytics, website testing, free information, how to make your website make you more money, e-commerce, Google Slap, website owners, customer experience, increased traffic, increased conversions, sell more, conversion rate, website visitors, content, AdWords, persuasion, law of reciprocity, educational marketing, persuasion principles

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