4 and 5 are so closely tied together: actively misleading customers to turn a profit and forsaking a good user experience because you’ve misunderstood the usefulness of a certain technology.
We usually get these problems because of the incorrect assumption that more traffic correlates to more sales. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t.
You’ve likely read about the power of good SEO to build more web traffic, been curious about how to get ranked first on Google, or just wanted to be seen. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s certainly good for you to not ignore web standards, well written content, and backlinks.
However, there are certain businesses that this tactic will work really well for. And when I say tactic, I don’t mean just any SEO, I mean sloppy haphazard gray hat SEO techniques that are commonly used by small and mid-sized businesses to reach the front page of Google at all costs. But, on the whole it takes a lot more than just getting found first to create a sale.
Even if that weren’t true, this only works well with certain products, and is dependent on a lot of different variables. Think about shopping online, the same way that people shop offline. When customers are looking for the best version of a product and price is not a matter, they may just be looking for a convincing presentation.
When you call a bunch of different stores and then decide to visit them, you’re doing exactly what people do on the web when shopping. It’s a lot easier to comparison shop online too, because it doesn’t actually involve going anywhere. Unless you feel absolutely comfortable with what you’ve seen at the first store (and even when you do), you’re still going to comparison shop.
Let’s say we have 10 potential customers. And there are 10 different local companies to choose from. For every 1 person that chooses the first store they’ve settled on, there are at least 8 more that continue the search. And there will be at least 1 of those that pays above market value for the same product at the 4th place they check.
How do you decide on the quality of those stores? It depends any one of these things can effect your decision: general atmosphere and layout, word of mouth from a trusted source, impulse buy, sales people, etc. If the first store AAA Widgets rubs you the wrong way, their number 1 listing in the phone book or on Google means very little. Maybe you just like Zed’s Zoolicious Widgets, better. .
Sometimes people make the leap that more traffic equals more potential customers. But, the question we should be asking is, ‘What does it matter if 1 million customers visit Bob’s Widgets? And 1,000 customers buy it, if 810 customers return the product because it’s not exactly what they thought it was.’
