The Secret Powers of Search
By Eric Martin (http://www.futurastudios.com)
Many people who are working on search engine optimization
complain that it is difficult to acquire links from other
websites. One solution is to add a search box on your site,
as this can help generate links and increase targeted traffic
to your site.
Once a website is search-enabled it is common to discover that
people are searching for existing content that they are unable
to locate, which means it's time to re-evaluate your website
navigation. A quick redesign is often all that is needed. You'll
know you've done it right when the terms no longer appear in
your search reports, and your visitors stay on the site longer
and view more pages per visit.
But the biggest benefit of search-enabled websites is the
ability to pinpoint content that may be missing from the
website. When you rank well for a very generic keyword -- like
"clothes" -- you'll attract a lot of untargeted traffic with a
wide spectrum of interests and goals. With a search-enabled
website you'll be able to discover precisely what these visitors
were hoping to find on your pages by reviewing the search terms
they used on your site.
These site search reports were particularly helpful for a
resource site for sushi lovers (sushilinks.com) where we
discovered that many visitors were looking for information
about sushi and pregnancy. Because of this we created a page
with links to online articles on the subject. Within a few weeks
it was one of the most popular pages on the site, and traffic
started appearing from people who were linking on their own.
Asking for links is very time-consuming, has a low success rate,
and often lands you on a page crammed with links to websites that
will be very similar to your own. Unsolicited links always carry
more weight, and building resource pages is the easiest and most
efficient way to generate them.
The site search reports also revealed that many people visiting
SushiLinks were looking for "sushi posters" which were not being
offered. We suggested to the client that sushi posters be made
available through the website to meet this demand. The client
agreed, and once the page was ready a Wordtracker report on the
term indicated that an even higher number of people on the Web
were searching for the phrases "sushi pictures" and "pictures of
sushi." We took this into consideration and named the page "Sushi
Poster - Pictures with Sushi Fish." Soon we started showing up
for both targeted phrases, and when someone clicked they would
land on the poster page. The conversion rate on the page has been
high. Again, this started with reading the website search reports
carefully.
Finding new phrases is a continual process. On a resource site
it is important to offer new and updated material, and to pay
attention to your site search reports. Just keep adding new
pages and content to provide the material for which people are
looking and a much wider net will be cast - increasing the number
of keywords used to find your website. Currently the traffic
from the major search engines to the sushi site includes over
3,000 different sushi-related phrases.
On another project, a resource site for Photoshop users
(photoshopsupport.com), we studied the site search terms to see
what the website might be "missing." One thing we discovered was
that many visitors were looking for "free video tutorials." We
contacted a company that sold video tutorials for Photoshop and
they agreed to work with us on a page that would offer sample
videos of their products. Now we had a page with free video
tutorials, and as soon as it went online it became one of the
most visited pages on the site. Once again we started getting
traffic from search engines for a whole new group of keywords,
but even better was that other sites soon started linking.
All in all this is a relatively easy way to increase the traffic
of targeted visitors to your site. Continue to keep mining the
data and building relevant pages, and others will see that you
are a growing resource site and link to you.
There are many scripts available on the Internet that will allow
you to incorporate search capability on a website. My favorite
is a free service (for websites of 500 or fewer pages) by Atomz
. It is easy to install and there is a
template editor - which makes it a snap to create a results page
that looks exactly like the rest of your site. And Atomz offers
reports that let you view the top searched words and terms for
the day, week, and month.
Use this incredibly powerful tool - this crystal ball that
reveals your visitors' innermost goals - and you'll reap the
rewards almost instantly.
Editorial Note: This article first appeared in the High Rankings
Advisor (http://www.highrankings.com/advisor.htm)
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Eric Martin is the director of Futura Studios
(http://www.futurastudios.com) a full-service Website
development company based in Montreal, Canada. They specialize
in Website design/redesign, search engine optimization and
content development and writing.
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