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When Search Meets Web Usability: Informational Searches—What Can I Learn?

Apr 13, 2009

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When Search Meets Web Usability

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Conclusion

Key points in this chapter:

Informational queries are important to website owners because they are the most common type of search engine query. Satisfying informational searches is crucial for a site's long-term search engine visibility.
Many web search sessions begin with an informational query and end with a transaction.
All websites should contain informational pages. They provide specific content of user interest.
Some types of informational pages include category pages, channel pages, FAQs or customer service pages, and pages that contain topical lists of resources (such as Links, Resources, and Tips sections).
Field studies and exploratory usability tests often reveal searchers' informational goals above and beyond what can be inferred from web analytics data and keyword research tools.
Longer keyword phrases (more than three words) tend to be informational queries; shorter ones tend to be navigational queries.
If question words (how, what, where, why, who, when) are part of a keyword phrase, then the keyword phrase is an informational query.
The plural form of a word can be a strong indication that searchers desire to view a list of products. Many category and channel pages should be optimized for the plural form of a targeted keyword.
The appearance of Wikipedia and other how-to listings in search results is a strong indication that the query words show informational intent by the users.
The description or snippet is more important than the URL structure for informational searches. Keep the meta-tag description longer (around 200 to 250 characters) for pages that typically satisfy searchers informational intent.
Do not use the same meta-tag description on every page of a site. Tailor meta-tag descriptions to reflect actual page content.

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