Search behaviour is one window into the customer’s mind. But there are many others.
When we did a top tasks study of MBA students we found that their top task revolved around asking this question: “How does your MBA program help me advance my career?” The final three words—advance my career—were very powerful when put into a link. But these words never came up in search statistics. You see, there are many tasks that people either don’t search for or only search indirectly for.
