Our last post introduced the concept of Search First: optimizing your customer experience by combining search data and UX strategy from the very start of your website design/re-design effort. The feedback was great – and there were a few “I’ve not heard of this before” conversations. 

To follow that up, here are Four Reasons to think “Search First”:

1. Your website is the front door to your business. Put out the welcome mat by making your site easy to find in search. Make it a useful place to do business by leveraging search data early in the process to improve your site’s ability to provide the answers your customers need.
2. Google is in the business of delivering its users with the most relevant results. Incorporating insights gained from analysis of search data into your website structure helps increase the search value of your website. “Google wants to provide searchers with a positive experience that will keep them coming back. They achieve this by serving up the most relevant and credible content that answers a user’s search query,” says Chris Everett, Macquarium partner and President at Captivate Search Marketing. “This fact, combined with readily available search data, provides marketers with an incredible opportunity to optimize their website structure, content, and experience to answer the needs of a potential customer’s search query. If you don’t take a Search First approach to your website, you’re missing out on this key business growth opportunity.”
3. Good service is the best way to your customer’s heart (and wallet). Search First optimization provides ‘pre-emptive service’ by delivering exactly the search results your current and prospective customers seek. Beginning with a positive search experience sets the right tone for your customer relationship.
4. Search data reveals behavioral intent, which is uniquely valuable to your business. Behavioral intent describes how people search for what they need, where they want to go, or what they want to know. It is a source of unfiltered information about what customers really want, even when they may not be aware of it.  Careful analysis of search data combined with UX methodologies allows you design a website that “understands” your customer(s).

If success begins with a user-centric model, using ‘Search First’ methods combining UX and Search strategy will accelerate your path to happy customers.  Organize your entire business to be search friendly from the foundation up with Search First, and maximize the value of your digital spend.

To learn more about how you can find and use search behavior insights, please contact us.