Here it is, 7:00 on a Sunday morning and I am browsing for pre-holiday bargains in my comfy chair with a cup of coffee and the toasty warmth of the fireplace. (Here in the northeast, an early cold snap puts the morning temperature at 23 unbelievable degrees!) Like other shoppers, whether you intend to visit a brick and mortar or not, you can easily plan your shopping and grab up discounts and coupons with the ease of a click. Which lead me to click on a call to action from Target.com.

Sign up for the 2-day sale preview!

Sounds great! I sign-up, they send me sale information before anyone who didn’t click! It’s a compelling call to action for someone in the holiday buying mode.

Now, I’m totally sensitive to design. It’s my passion…that is, until it disrupts usability. Target is a great brand. No living, breathing American doesn’t recognize their red target logo or Bullseye the Bull Terrier mascot.

There’s a time when you want to maintain design conventions: colors, patterns, and style. Then there’s time to realize that maybe those conventions might not work as intended. They may actually impede the customer’s intent. That’s when you need to stop and re-evaluate and re-design.

That’s what I found when I clicked that call to action. A very pretty overlayed registration box. I entered my email address twice. I clicked the opt-in boxes. Then…

I clicked the Cancel button.

Why? How can that happen? I wanted to sign-up. I got this far. What was I thinking???

Here’s why. Take a look at the two action buttons. The more prominent button is the Cancel button. It has more visual contrast and is featured on the right: the path I am more likely to take if I am expecting to “move forward.”

Why would they position it that way? Why would they make the Cancel button the most prominent action and image on the screen?

Sometimes it’s the simple things that escape us. I am a big proponent of not making it easy for someone to say no, particularly if they have made it this far in the purchase funnel. If they are not interested, they can always click the close window option.

I did go back and tryit again after I realized what happened. I wonder how many other people quickly filled-in their email address and instinctively clicked the more prominent option and didn’t go back. Ah, consider their disappointment when they don’t get their 2-day sale reminder.

Don’t make simple mistakes in an already difficult economy and shopping climate, particularly at what is the biggest shopping time of the year. Even though something may be designed one way, keep an eye on results and analytics, and change what doesn’t work or can work better…and change it fast!

Hey Target…Consider this a little free advice.

Happy Black Friday!

Last week we explored how search trends recorded by Google may be a good predictor of our next US President. And Google’s trends were correct: Barack Obama was the winner.

Taken from the “I saw it on the news at 5:00 this morning over coffee” category, Google’s user’s search habits are being used as a predictor of flu outbreaks. Google touts the following on their Outbreak page…

We’ve found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional systems.

People are increasingly jumping on the web with symptoms before contacting their doctor. So what’s up with this aching, runny nose, stuffy head feeling I have coming on? Let’s check Google and see…to the tune of 75% of Internet users polled between October and December of 2007 according to the Pew Internet Project.

With trends, it’s all about timing. A rise in search terms indicates an increased interest. A fall would indicate decreasing interest. There wouldn’t be mass numbers of people searching for flu-related terms in the middle of summer, for instance, as that’s not a typical time for the flu. Watching trends on a regular basis will help you to see where the rises are and prepare accordingly.

Trends are a huge factor in seasonal topics. If your business is trend-oriented, you should keep an eye on what Google’s data shows.

Paging Doctor Google…it hurts when I do this…

In the first part of this article, we looked to Google Insights and Google Trends for just that: insight into who might be the next President of the United States. Today, the day before the election, we look at the current results using both tools.

First, a lot of people ask me, “What’s the difference between Google Insights and Google Trends?” Great question. The difference may seem subtle at first, however they are quite different. Essentially, I note Insights as “Trends 2.0.” The data described is over time and both are “scaled and normalized.” as Google notes it:

The numbers on the graph reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They don’t represent absolute search volume numbers, because the data is normalized and presented on a scale from 0-100; each point on the graph is divided by the highest point, or 100. The numbers next to the search terms above the graph are summaries, or totals.

You’ll note that Trends gives you news articles, which I like to use as a barometer of sorts to reflect why a particular rise in searches may have taken place.

Insights, however, focuses more on relative searches: what other terms a searcher may have been searching for and their “trends” in search volume.

To get a better idea, take a look at these examples of the same request comparing Baraack Obama to John McCain using the two tools.

Google Trends: (click image to enlarge)

Google Insights: (click image to enlarge)

We’ll take a closer look at both of these in future posts. For now, let’s get back to the question at hand: who’s really leading in the elections according to Google. Using blue for Obama and red for McCain, you’ll note a dramatic rise in searches for Obama since mid-September, yet a slight rise or John McCain. However searches remain far higher for Obama, with a recent steep climb mid-October. 

Based on this data, Google predicts the next President of the United States is…Barack Obama.

Regardless of what search volume tells you, Google does not participate in the Electoral College. Get out there and vote on the 4th.

There’s a chill in the air. Lowe’s has their Christmas lights on display. But wait, Halloween is still weeks away. No matter…the holiday season is upon us. If you are selling products online, you should be in “Holiday Prep Mode.”

This season is bringing far greater challenges than any we have seen in the Internet economy. With economy “isn’t great” to say the least. So customers are looking to cut their shopping budgets. And they have a lot of choices, so you need to provide them with a comfortable shopping environment, great prices, and overall an experience that far outshines that of your competition.

Here are 3 things you should be doing now to prepare for the holiday season.

1. Testing 1, 2, 3. While larger organizations often have teams focused on testing and modifying their shopping carts on a regular basis, many small businesses rarely go through such regular processes, and others admit to testing their sales process once when their site was developed, and then never again.  Every business owner who has a website should be extremely familiar with their online sales process and to the only way to gain that familiarity is to actual experience it. That means ACTUALLY going through the whole process and buying something!

Test the sales process. Test the communication process. Test the overall experience. Over time you may find that some internal processes have changed and those changes may indicate that some upgrades to your online process are required. You may also find that server upgrades, modifications to processing and security, and other behind the scenes technical issues may need attention. If you cannot test your site, ensure you have someone in your organization that is responsible for doing so, or discuss a maintenance agreement with your development firm.

2. Promotion. Prepare all of your promotional efforts now and have a clear plan for when they are to move on to customers. That doesn’t mean you can’t insert a promotion in along the way, however you’ll find that it makes planning much easier to know that starting November 1, you will be running a print ad with a code for a discount, banner ads through the months of November and December for the hot products of the season, etc. Customers are looking for the big deals now more than ever. That may be why they shop your site over a competitor’s.

3. Reach a new audience. Is anyone out there? Is this thing on? If your recent promotional efforts have not brought in the customers, don’t expect they will now. Try some new avenues, such as blogging or social marketing to reach new customers who may never have heard of you.

Do you have a search marketing program in place? Is it effective? Make sure you are evaluating that program now and planning your budgets for the season. People are searching everyday for the products you sell. Make sure you are sending them to the closest match to their request, with the right message, and clear calls to action. Simply sending them to your home page isn’t enough.

These are the basics. Each of these topics can be expounded upon many times over. Unfortunately, as basic as they are, many companies do not have clear practices in place, and rarely practice all 3.

You can be a casualty of the economy or you can come out a winner. Do what you need to win.

We use Google Insights and Google Trends to test phrases when other data doesn’t provide us with the clear results we were hoping for. So I wondered, does the all knowing Google - the barometer of life as we know it, the voyeur into our wants and needs - know what’s on America’s mind? Can Google provide us with the “real poll” of who people are leaning towards in the November elections?

So I took a look…and interesting results came through.

The above image shows the search volume since 2004. Blue indicates searches for Barack Obama, red indicates John McCain. There’s an interesting peak in 2004 for Obama - likely around the time of the Democratic convention. The pattern throughout shows a higher level of results for Obama than McCain, up until this month… Click for current results.

Zooming in to 2008, we see another story emerging.

The trends are looking much more similar, with both peaking to similar levels between the end of August and the beginning of September. Current trends show them both dipping and coming to a point very close together at the current date. Which is what most current polls say, post debate.
Click for current results.

We will continue to watch this, and in a future installment, look at search terms and news events that reflect similar patterns.

There’s a huge value to this, and something we at Single Throw discuss all the time. Google - and search in general - provides real insight into people. It allows us to look over a person’s shoulder and gain quantitative data into what they want and need. We’re not asking the questions - they are.