Google product search soon to seduce online businesses

Say hi to the future of e-commerce and finish your mother’s day shopping at the same time – here comes Google product search. The pieces on the chess board are almost in place. How long do you think it will take Google to align their product search, their checkout, and their various social networking sites? Not long - I guess I will be working for Google soon. :(

As an alternative, I can can choose Yahoo as an employment option - as what ever Google is doing, Yahoo is always a step behind. I mention the possibility of Google checkout and yahoo checkout becoming a best practice for PPC, in a marketing forum. I never thought this would be correct because the rules of e-commerce were changing.

All things considered, I think Google checkout and Yahoo checkout will soon dominate the internet for online transactions. In fact, objects are already in motion. Why else would Google checkout and yahoo checkout be offering free processing until 2008? Price wars are a rookie move – don’t think for a moment that Paypal and Google aren’t aware of the stakes they are playing for.

Don't make your customers think: use blue hyperlinks

Personally, I have always felt that when you choose your sites color scheme, the rule of thumb is to use blue hyperlinks. This is because blue hyperlinks have the highest click through rates. People are conditioned to recognize blue text as a hyperlink – there is no thinking involved, the recognition is immediate.

As Steve Krug said in his famous book - don’t make your customer’s think! While black hyperlinks are as widely recognized as blue hyperlinks – black hyperlinks take a few moments longer to recognize. Whether it is a split second, or several moments: any extra thinking you demand of your customer makes them less likely to trust you. Since lack of trust is a leading reason preventing online purchases, the answer is simple. Don’t make your customer’s think! Use underlined blue hyperlinks.