ArticlesReader.com Menu
Newest Articles
Most Viewed Articles
ArticlesReader.com RSS
Submit Article
Login
Signup
Search the articles

Articles Main Categories
Advice
Animals
Automobiles
Business
Career
Communications
Computer Programming
Computers
Entertainment
Environment
Family
Fashion
Finance
Food
Health & Medical
Home & Garden
Humor
Internet Business
Internet Marketing
Legal
Leisure & Recreation
Marketing
Other
Politics
Reference & Education
Religion
Self Improvement
Sports
Technology & Science
Travel
Writing
Subscribe
Receive alert message from us when new articles submitted to our site for free.

Enter your name

Enter your email

Syndicate

















Related Products
Home::Web Design

How to improve your site search

Author : Tim Fidgeon
Making sure that your search engine makes it as easy as possible for your customers to find what they are looking for is business-critical. It is also very difficult - good search engines can cost an awful lot of money and require a lot of ongoing effort to keep them up to scratch.



As an example: on Monday 12th December 2005, I wanted to buy a copy of Jamie Oliver's new cook book Jamie's Italy from amazon.co.uk. So, I went to the "Books" section of their website and searched for "olivers italy" and these 9 items appeared on the results page:



1. "The American Tractor" by Patrick W. Ertel

2. "A Garden in Lucca: Finding Paradise in Tuscany" by Paul Gervais

3. "History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans" by Pamela Ballinger

4. "Oliver Tractors" by Jeff Hackett, Mike Schaefer

5. "Wyoming (Moon Handbooks S.)" by Don Pitcher

6. "Wines of Australia (Mitchell Beazley Wine Guides)" by James Halliday

7. "All Music Guide to Jazz: The Definitive Guide to Jazz Music" by Ron Wynn (Editor), et al.

8. "Larousse Gastronomique: The World's Greatest Cookery Encyclopedia" by Prosper Montagne

9. "The Teacher's Calendar: The Day-By-Day Directory to Holidays, Historical Events, Birthdays and Special Days, Weeks and Months" by Holly McGuire (Compiler), et al.



Jamie Oliver's book didn't appear anywhere on the results page, even though it had been Amazon's 3rd best-selling book in the previous 24 hours.



The problem was that I had typed "olivers italy", instead of "oliver's italy" (which would have returned Jamie Oliver's at the top of the search results list). That single missing apostrophe was all that it took for Amazon's expensive search engine to splutter, fall over and fail.



So - if Amazon can't do it, it must be impossible, right?



Wrong - here are some things the boys & girls at Amazon could - and should - have thought about.



Two types of problems



There are two basic types of problems that a user can experience when they are searching for something:



- User-error - the correct search term is entered incorrectly (i.e. the user intends to enter a search term that would cause the search engine to return results that are relevant to their needs, but they enter it incorrectly).

- Search engine error - the wrong search term is entered (i.e. the user enters a search term that the search engine does not relate to their needs).



User error



People generally enter the correct search term incorrectly because they either:



- Don't know how to spell it.

- Have made a typing error



It's important to realise that there are millions of potential customers who can't spell very well. For example, a 2003 survey of the literacy (i.e. reading and writing) estimated that there were 16% of English adults (aged 16 to 65-year-olds) had literacy levels no higher than those expected of an 11 year-old (source: The Skills for Life Survey).



Also, let's not forget that according to the British Dyslexia Association around 4% of the population are severely dyslexic and a further 6% have mild to moderate dyslexia problems.



This means that your search engine has to account for people making basic knowledge-based spelling mistakes.



Your search engine should also account for people who know how to spell what they are looking for, but make typing errors. The main categories of typing error are:



- Characters close to one another on the keyboard being entered erroneously (either in place of - or in addition to - the correct letter). For example: wrong/wring ; for/dfor.

- Characters being omitted. For example: missing/missng ; oliver's/olivers.

- Characters being entered too many times. For example: impossible/imposssible.

- Characters being entered in the wrong order. For example: disaply/display ; being/ebing.



Your search engine should allow people to make these mistakes and still return useful and relevant results.



Even though we have named these types of issues ‘User error', if your search engine fails to return information that that the user is looking for it is, of course, your fault and not theirs!



Search engine error



When people enter the wrong term into a search engine, it is only wrong because you have not anticipated it. You should aim to cover as many bases and anticipate as many different search terms as possible.



What to do



The next steps for making your search engine perform better are really simple:



- Sit down and make a list of all the spelling errors, typing errors and alternative search terms that you think could possibly be relevant to your site (e.g. actually look at your keyboard and think about what letters are close to one another).

- Ask other people in your organisation to make similar lists.

- Do some research into what search terms people are using on your site (e.g. interviews, questionnaires, check your search engine logs, etc.)

- Apply everything you learn to your search engine.



And that's it. You now have the knowledge you need to begin improving your site's search engine.



Other thoughts



- Improvements in word processing software have made people lazy typists. Software that auto-corrects many spelling and typing errors means that people are no longer forced to review and correct their work to the same extent as in the past. This means that many people are getting out of the habit of precise spelling/typing. So, when they move out of an auto-correcting environment (and onto a website, for example) they are more likely to make - and less likely to notice/correct - mistakes!



- Search results pages should display the search term the user entered in large text (e.g. 28pt). This would help people spot any inadvertent errors.Results pages should also provide the telephone numbers for customer enquiries/assistance.


Article Source: http://www.articledashboard.com





This article was written by Tim Fidgeon. Tim's crazy about web usability - so crazy that he's head of usability with Webcredible, an industry leading web usability and accessibility consultancy ( Webcredible - www.webcredible.co.uk ).





Spam emails More free articles

Related articles


  1. The Top 8 Website Sins Part Two
  2. The Top 8 Website Sins Part One
  3. 10 seconds is all it takes… (How to grab the attention of your audience with your web site)
  4. So You’re Hiring a Web Designer—You Have the Right to Demand these 7 Perks
  5. 6 Design Flaws Newbie Web Designers Make: Fool Everyone Into Thinking You Know What You're Doing
  6. Excellently Constructed Websites
  7. Web Designers Beware!
  8. Quality Website Design At An Affordable Price
  9. Website Colors That Turn Off Your Customers
  10. What The Font? – Understanding Typefaces On The Web
  11. Freelancers Bite Back!
  12. Web Design: Should You Hire Someone or Do It Yourself?
  13. Branding Web Strategy Mistakes - Brand Identity Guru
  14. Web-Safe Fonts for Your Site
  15. Web Designing Tips
  16. Good Websites Stand Out From The Masses Of Boring, Hard To Travel Sites
  17. Testament To Testimonials
  18. Reach Out To Billions
  19. Every Website is a Human Being’s Attempt at Achieving a Goal or Obtaining Happiness
  20. Give People What They Want And Watch Your Profits Soar!
  21. You Too Can Have an Amazing Website
  22. The Seven Deadly Sins of Web Business Design
  23. 10 Nifty Ways to Prolong Your Visitors at Your Website
  24. Website Design: Redecorate Your Web Site To Increase Sales
  25. Service Professions: Does Your Website Follow These 5 Simple Rules For Getting More Clients?
More related feeds
5 basic tactics for improving your search engine rankings
It often takes months before you see results, and at least a year before your site becomes a search engine winner. See Pandia’s Search Engine Marketing 101 for more tips and more detailed advice on how to improve your search engine ...

Geo Targeting SEO Strategies for a Single Country
Websites do rank differently in the search engine result pages of different countries. You want your site to rank well in the SERP of the country that your business targets. When setting up the SEO strategies your website, ...

Building Web Site Traffic through Blogging
However, writing regular blog entries and including an RSS feed so that readers can subscribe to your blog can help increase traffic to your site, increase the number of one-way backlinks, and thus improve your search engine rankings. ...

Optimize Your Landing Page for Online Marketing Success
We recently did landing page testing for one of our search clients. Their method of conversion, we found, was to send a visitor to their Web site to fill out an e-mail form asking for more information. We also realized that the bulk of ...

Further Beyond the Top 10 SEO Factors
To spell it out more clearly, I’m suggesting that you go into some of your older pages, and add or edit some links with good anchor text popinting to critical areas of your own site that you wish to improve. ...

Improve your site and increase site traffic
Search engines also rank sites with fresh content higher. Keeping an active blog is a great way to keep your site new and fresh. Keep it Simple - Visitors should be able to easily look around your site. If visitors are frustrated and ...

Tips for a Website Redesign in the Web 2.0 World
You’ll have to ask yourself, "Do I want to redesign my site for SEO and to improve traffic and search engine rankings?" or "Do I want to redesign my site solely for aesthetics and Web 2.0?" The easy answer: In 2008 you need to plan your ...

Adwords Campaigns
Test and monitor your AdWord campaigns - start with 3 ad groups, then keep the other ad groups for later as you monitor your current campaign. Make the necessary changes to your ad copy, keywords or bid prices to improve your ...

10 Ways to Optimize a Popular Post on Your Blog
This one is important whether the source of traffic is search engines, another site or social media as it focusses upon converting your new visitors to the page into ongoing readers of your blog. When I have a ‘hot post’ I’ll often add ...

Drawing sellers to a home-raffle site
First, look at your organic ranking - where your site shows up in search engines when you don’t pay for services to boost your rank. Once you know where you stand, there’sa number of ways in which you can improve your placement. ...

 

 

© 2007 articlesreader.com - All Rights Reserved