Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why it Matters (Book Review of the Week-ish)

What do Arctic Monkeys, The Biggest Loser, Dancing with the Stars, Ron Paul and a fear of intimacy have to do with each other? And what do they have in common with your business?

According to Bill Tancer – in his entertaining and useful new book, Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters – all of these popular searches conducted by consumers on the web help researchers like Tancer – and by extension, you – understand customers’ intent. In his book, Tancer helps unravel the hidden meaning behind various search terms, piercing the veil of mystery surrounding, why customers do what they do and what their searches tell us about what matters to them.

The book – an easy read, I got through it in a few hours – offers a number of case studies, each illustrating some aspect of consumers’ online search behavior. Tancer then pieces together disparate data sources, unlocking customer intent inherent in each search. It reads something like a mystery novel – and a fine one at that. While not as “big picture” as John Battelle’s The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, nor as practical as Grappone and Couzin’s Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day, Tancer’s book makes a fine addition to your business bookshelf. It may not answer every business question you have. But it will get you thinking about what questions you should be asking. And that’s worth every penny.

Pick up a copy of Click today.

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