What do users really want?
It\’s a question that publishers ask themselves all the time. We look at the comments our articles receive. We review our stats. We check the popularity of keywords. We ask for ideas on Twitter. And we do all sorts of other things that try to second-guess what\’s going through our users\’ minds so that we can deliver content that interests them most.
But maybe we\’re asking the wrong question.
Maybe the question we should be asking is: what do these users want?
There is a tendency to see users as a single, giant block. A publisher will assume that when users visit a site about role-playing games, for example, some will be interested in reviews, others in strategies, and a few more in news about gaming. So a smart publisher will create content on each of those topics, balancing each category to satisfy everyone and maximize earnings.
Those user preferences might be true, but focusing on what users want ignores what they feel – not about the topic of the site, but about the site itself.
When a visitor reaches a site from a search engine, he has no idea whether the site is going to deliver the content he wants. He\’s been offered a giant list of options and he\’s going to give maybe two seconds to the first choice before heading back to the search engine and trying the next option on the list.
For those visitors, you need to act fast to reassure them. You need page design that looks professional, headlines that grab the eye and opening paragraphs that spark curiosity. You need to pull the user in quickly and start to win his trust.
Returning users though already have your trust. You don\’t need to persuade them of anything. You just have to make sure that you don\’t disappoint them.
The differences might be subtle but they do need to be considered. Plenty of publishers create keyword-rich articles to bring in search engine traffic, for example, but content like that does little for returning users who want information that\’s informative and easy to read. Create too many search engine articles and while you\’ll bring in lots of new visitors, you\’ll lose many of the old ones.
Chitika seems to have noticed the difference between these two groups of users. Its Premium ads – the replacements for the old eMiniMalls – are only shown to search engine traffic (and not even to all of those visitors). The question that we need to ask ourselves as publishers is what else we should be showing them.