Lauren Ackerman, Web Content Specialist
Well…literally almost everything. Their search engine has indexed over 30 trillion websites and executes billions of searches each day. “Google” is now used as a verb, joining the ranks of brands-become-eponymous terms like Kleenex, Band-aid and Frisbee.
So what can Google teach us about human behavior online? Literally almost anything.
Let’s do a thought experiment: picture Google.com. In your minds’ eye, what do you see?
Logo. Search bar. Two buttons. Did you remember the icons in the top right corner?
But it’s most striking feature isn’t a presence, it’s an absence. The absence of stuff.
Depending on your screen size and proportion, it’s 75%-85% white space. No committee demanding that we cross-sell the other offerings with multiple compelling calls-to-action “above the fold.”
Does Google have other things besides search that it wants you to use, and to sell you? Absolutely. Remember the icons in the top right corner? YouTube, Google Drive, Google Plus, Gmail, Maps, Calendar, and on, and on. They’re present, and accessible, but they don’t steal focus from what you came to that page to do.
Let’s repeat the same thought experiment, this time with Yahoo. Picture their home page.
…
How did you do? Not as easy to recall as Google, is it? It’s a jumble of a lot of stuff. Compare Google’s approach and subsequent success (65% market share), with Yahoo’s approach and semi-success (5% market share). They cross-sell. They tell you what’s trending. They click-bait. They cram a lot “above the fold” (*Sigh*). Yahoo and Google were both incorporated in the mid-nineties. They showed the same early promise, with literally the same product, but Yahoo has never been able to match Google’s level of success.
Now, I’m not advocating that ecommerce marketers make their home and landing pages three-quarters white space. What I am advocating is that if you want people to do one thing, then do not distract them with multiple competing messages. Create a visual hierarchy based on what you want them to do first, second and third. Use clear navigation, and choose your call-to-action deliberately and sparingly. Give it room to exist.
The question of the day is this: The single largest online repository of human behavior has made a deliberate choice to embrace simplicity and clarity. What are you going to do?
