iCrossing VP of digital strategy Rob Garner's presentation at the Search Marketing Expo in Toronto, Canada, covering the nuances of Google personalization, and what it means to marketers.
5. Awards and Accolades Top Digital Agency Top Search Agency Top 25 Interactive Fastest Growing Companies Top 25 Interactive Number One Search Agency Search Agency of the Year
24. Use search data and ask search questions when developing personas “ More About Search In The Web Design Process” http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=120971
25.
26.
27.
28. THANK YOU SMX Toronto April 2010 Rob Garner Strategy Director iCrossing.com [email_address] 214.676.2089 @robgarner www.facebook.com/garner GreatFinds.iCrossing.com Linkedin.com/in/robgarner Media Post Search Insider Blog
Editor's Notes
Inform your personas through interviews, and ask subjects to talk about how they search; or, better yet, observe how they search online Map keyword learnings into more complex scenarios for the process of finding. This comes from understanding who your audiences are; what their needs and desires are; and what linguistic cues play into various stages of their connected search and digital journey. Leverage learnings from paid search early on. If the right analytics are in place, then this is proven data that can help validate or inform other data on the front end of research processes. Keep in mind that sometimes the real gold mine in all of market research is finding that one word -- the one linguistic cue that could be a seed concept to a much greater universe of language and intent. Get out of the habit of making assumptions based on what you think your target audience will search for. Go ask them directly, and free your initiatives of your own biases. Look to social networks for linguistic cues - search and social both provide open windows into how audiences speak, and what they seek. And many enterprise businesses have gotten even smarter and are leveraging them both for major initiatives. Use internal searches to help inform campaigns and future designs, and follow up on this data in early customer research. If consumers are getting all the way to your site and typing particular terms, this could be a strong indicator of a particular intention, or may identify something that is currently lacking in the existing design, content, or architecture. Consider the various types of digital assets, and how your target audience searches for them. This insight works on a redesign, or for ongoing content strategies. This ultimately helps you engage more with your target audience, and also extends reach into universal search and social networks.
Develop your target user's search persona, and use search to develop a picture of your user's journey both in-search, and on-site. When some sites receive 25% to 45% of traffic from search engines, a huge area of research is being ignored by not finding out how those same users seek out content in engines, both linguistically, and from an engagement standpoint.