We have been thinking lately about the experience that users and customers have before getting to the target site. Jakob Neilsen famously said that customers spend more time on other sites rather than yours and no one would argue with that, but what do users do on those other sites, and how does it affect their behaviour when they arrive at your site?

Lots of clicks but low click conversion is very bad news indeed

Well a simple and only slightly controversial extension to 'Jakob's Law' is that users spend a considerable amount of time on search engines looking for the right site to go to. And as Google is now the most popular search engine in the UK, businesses need to be asking:

• what people type into Google?
• where do they then look?
• why do they click on one listing rather than another?
• and, having clicked, why do they stay on a site?
• or, if they don't stay, what do they do differently after they go back and start again?

Some of these aspects of these large scale behaviours have received some attention, but I have yet to see any research that joins these up, except for ours of course! Which is odd, as businesses have already got access to good quality statistical information about clickthrough and conversion through pay per click and organic search. And, of course, because getting lots of clicks but low click conversion is very bad news indeed.

Our research is suggesting that entries on the Google search pages are being selected both for clickthrough and viewing by 'thin-slicing'. For clickthrough, the complete search results page is being assimilated and the decision made in only a few seconds. And by unconscious and irrational processes, not open to introspection. For viewing, a similar process is occurring to the landing page, but with the addition of the psychological priming added by the information in the selected listing. What is absolutely not taking place is any kind of rational and logical process. So ads and listings constructed with data constructed using traditional 'features and benefits' research may not be valid. If prospects are using thin slicing to make their assessments, then it would make sense to use research methods based on thin-slicing to discover what makes a successful click and a viewing.

So where does usability fit? Well the shame of all of this is that you may have the most usable site in the internet universe, but if the 'before' experience does not work, no one will see it, and no one will convert. As the internet matures, the makers of the internet must realise that there is more to the internet universe than that which they control, and the customer, and their journey is king.