Jakob Nielsen — the world’s foremost authority in web usability and audience segmentation — recently published research that exploded several myths about marketing to college students. In his words, college students are, “enraptured by social media, but reserve it for private conversations and thus visit company sites from search engines.”
Wait a second. What is happening here? Aren’t today’s students all digital natives, comfortable with technology from their earliest years? Aren’t they the early adopters of everything new and shiny?
In a word (well, two words), not exactly.
Yes, college students are extremely comfortable with web technology. They know the online world very well. So, when they want information about any organization, they turn to search rather than a company-built fan page.
Why? Because students see search as an unbiased source of information. Nielsen calls it “Google Gullibility”, and his research shows that even the most educated people suffer it. In layman’s terms, if it’s on Google, then people trust it; and the top search results get the click, most of the time.
A Generation of Skeptics
In general, educated people tend to be more skeptical of any marketing message. The unnatural excess of one-sided marketing over the years created this skepticism, and it is strong.
So, for today’s college student, search is the avenue of choice to learn about any organization or product. Search allows them to “pull” in the information that they choose, rather than be interrupted by old school “push” messages.
Search Is Essential
In order to engage college students – or any educated market segment, for that matter – you need a strong search presence. If your business is not found easily in web search, then you have surrendered significant audience share to competitors and third-party opinion sites.
In addition, search and social media should exist as fully-integrated aspects of any online presence. Social media engagement is powerful in itself, but, without a strong search presence, even great success in the social arena is like carrying water in a leaky bucket: You work a lot harder than you should, just to get the output that you need.
Ted Ulle can be reached at: ted [at] converseon-dot-com.
Ted Ulle is a Senior Search Analyst at Converseon, and is a pioneer in search marketing who entered the emerging field in 1996 on a foundation of twenty years as a turn-around specialist in multi-channel retail marketing. Ted’s expertise in organic search optimization is enhanced by additional strengths in information architecture, website usability, and technical marketing copy. He has consulted successfully with hundreds of businesses in both B2B and B2C markets. His strong track record and communication skills make him a welcome speaker at industry conferences, including PubCon and the elite SEOClass. Since 1999, Ted has served as an administrator and advisory board member for Webmaster World, one of the foremost online forums for organic search optimization experts. He is also a senior editor for Search Engine Marketing Journal, the only peer-reviewed, academic publication for the search marketing industry.
That’s what happens when Google and Wikipedia are considered primary sources! Another point that has surprised me is that many college graduates still do not learn HTML. It should be required by now.
That’s funny – I just got a related question asked to me on this subject, and my first answer was the need for SEO!
I’ve resigned myself. HTML is never going to be mainstream education – not even at the college level. With the rise of the CMS in recent years, most people will have no need to know it, just as most people in the TV industry don’t need to know how to generate a broadcast signal.
It’s a funny thing – in a very sad way. There are already people calling themselves an “SEO” who never wrote source code for a single web page. These folks can even deliver a kind of baseline SEO (titles, keywordsin content, backlinks) that has some value. Just like the gas station guy can deliver some value by cleaning your car window. That doesn’t, however, mean that he can rebuild your transmission.
@Ted Ulle – I find that quiet interesting that you say HTML isn’t a skill that’s needed, what about small start-ups that don’t require a CMS and want to keep costs low? As an SEO I’ve found knowing HTML/CSS etc to be an invaluable skill, especially with SEO changing and new techniques coming to the fold; I can easier change a websites structure, coding, new elements etc in no time at all.
@SEO Nottingham – I am commenting here about a direction that I see emerging. Of course you are correct. For thorough SEO today, knowledge of HTML is an invaluable skill, as is knowledge of server configuration, various scripting languages and so on. However, there are SEOs even now who are delivering “some” value and who do not understand HTML. It’s nowhere near the total value they coould deliver, but there is still some value being delivered.
With search engines compensating for common website problems more and more, in the future it may well be possible to run a competitive online business with only a minimum of technical skill. But until the CMS offerings mature quite a bit beyond their present level, an SEO definitely needs coding skills to deliver full measure.
@Ted Ulle – great comment and couldn’t agree more about CMSs maturing. I agree about running a competitive business with limited skills but if your an agency most businesses want to do everything under one roof, which in turn can add more value and be more cost effective than using multiple suppliers.
Saying all of that, I’ve found doing SEO I have picked up a lot of knowledge about HTML, CSS and PHP skills along the way. So in a n nutshell you have hit the nail on the head that you can run a business but having more knowledge is an advantage.