|
Why We Use Search July 10 2006 |
|
The other day I was thinking about what we did before search engines existed… I mean it wasn’t all that long ago, but I had difficulty in looking back and remembering when I used a search engine for the first time. I think it was probably Netscape as it seemed to be the “default way” to search the web at the time. There was no Google, Yahoo seemed more of an entertainment portal and I really don’t remember using any of the other smaller engines such as Hotbot and Excite. The thing is, I was not an early adopter. At the time, I wasn’t a big fan of computers so I was out of the loop with technology and search… that is until I met Jeeves. Ah yes Ask Jeeves. This was my first memorable experience with a search engine. I thought it was pretty cool how you could type in a question and have the butler return a response. For the most part the results that were returned satisfied my query. If you think about it, Ask Jeeves was on the right track with the service they were providing. Think about why we use search. We use search because we have a need for knowledge, or for a product, or for a service, or because we have a simple question that we do not know the answer to. (ie. What time is the movie playing tonight and at what theatre?) Why We Use Search We use search to expand our options. If we are researching a product or service, chances are we have a couple of options in our mind. We may want to broaden the options that we have available, so we use search to see what else is out there. This is where search engine marketing plays a role, because in our minds and eventually with our query we conduct a search based on a specific key phrase or term that we are thinking about. No matter what search engine we use, we expect to receive relevant results for our queries. Sites that are well optimized and ranking well for all of the right reasons are the ones that should catch our attention and our click. While this is not always the case, this is the ideal situation. For those of us comfortable with purchasing online, we use search to find a place to purchase. When you go to eBay you are not immediately taken to the product you are looking for. You have to perform a search, and quite often you have to refine your search to eliminate unwanted items. The same applies to using a search engine and finding a site that sells the product or service that you are interested in purchasing. We also use search to locate sites that are mentioned through other resources. Quite often through other media we are presented with information about online destinations that are of interest to us. Search is often used to help us find these sites (unless of course you have already visited them and have the site bookmarked). With the advent of search toolbars, we now use search as navigation shortcuts. For example, you may be in the market for an Adidas cross trainer running shoe with extra ankle support. You know that the information and product you’re looking for will likely be on the Adidas site so you could go to the site and try to navigate to the proper page for cross trainers with extra ankle support… but this could take a while to browse through the site to find the right page. Instead you could use a search engine such as Google and type in “adidas cross trainer with ankle support”. In this case you will be looking for a specific adidas.com results page that takes you directly to the relevant page that you are looking for. If this page doesn’t show up, you will see other results on the page that are relevant to your query. We use search because we require an answer to our questions and queries. Ask Jeeves had the right idea with their “ask a question – receive an answer model”, but eventually they had to adapt to the way of “keyword search engines” like Google. Ask.com was the first commercial question-answering search engine for the Web. They understood why we use search and that is to simply find relevant information and answers to our questions. As site owners, you want to keep in mind why people would be searching for your product or service. Understand the needs of your potential consumers. Develop search engine marketing strategies to help entice these potential consumers to not only arrive at your site, but allow them to enjoy a great user experience as well. |
|
|
Jody Nimetz