There was a really interesting post by Nicholas Carr on his blog a few days ago. The post was about the influence of Google, particularly as it relates to the news media. He basically points out that Google is a “very, very large middleman” that stands between us and the information or product we’re searching for.

This got me thinking about how this relates to the rest of the online world, particularly commercial sites that sell a product or service. As Carr points out, the Internet was originally billed as an equalizer, something that put everyone on the same level. Living in a capitalistic society, I’m not sure that was ever a real possibility but it was a great promise. Now that the Internet has pervaded our everyday life (generally for the good) it’s clear that it doesn’t place everyone on a level field. Sure anyone can start up a website and start selling their wares, but without cooperating with the search engines that website will have a tough time drawing traffic.

I’m certainly not suggesting that the search engines are evil, they provide a very valuable service. There are millions of websites out there and we obviously can’t sort through them all ourselves. However, I think we often forget that they are businesses and exist to make money. Often the best way for them to make money is to provide the most valuable search tools but that isn’t what is necessarily driving them.

So what’s the point of all this? Awareness. We should be aware that search engines are not as unbiased as we may think. We should be aware that just as in the physical world it’s all to easy for the big guys to overwhelm the little ones. And, just as in the physical world, this often hurts the consumers.

Using web analytics, such as Google Analytics, can offer a huge amount of information about your visitors that can be used to generate more traffic and convert visitors into buyers. Although the vast amount of information can seem overwhelming, it’s worth investing the time (or money to hire a professional) to understand how your site can be improved. Here are some things to look for:

1. Traffic Mix – Looking at where your traffic is coming from can help you determine where you need to focus your efforts.
2. Page Views – A high number of clicks from a user can mean that your site is engaging or it could mean that the user-interface is poor and customers can’t find what they’re looking for.
3. Bounce Rate – How many visitors are leaving after visiting only one page?
4. Going Global – Do you have international visitors? What can you do to appeal to them?
5. Abandoned Shopping Carts – Are your visitors ditching their shopping carts before checking out? Maybe your checkout process is confusing or too time consuming.
6. Keywords – If search engine referrals are only coming from people that already know your name then maybe it’s time to work a little more on your SEO strategy.