Search strategies for 2010

Forget about simple keyword searches. As consumers have become more adept at using the Internet the ways they use certain platforms has also changed. One of the biggest changes is in search. No longer are consumers typing in long questions; now they use one or two keywords and most won't go past the first page of results before requerying. To engage a searching consumer marketers need to follow the trends.

by Kristina Knight

First, the numbers. The latest information from comScore paints a picture most search marketers are familiar with: Google leads with a 65% search share. Nearest competitor Yahoo trails with only 17% of searches. Microsoft (10% search share), Ask Network (3% search share) and AOL (2.8% search share) are also in the top ten.

For the 14.4 billion searches performed Google handed more than 13.7 billion queries. What this number means is that consumers are querying more often. Are there that many products, brands or celebrities being searched? Not necessarily. Many of these increased queries are requeries as consumers try to narrow the search, get more specific information and weed out uninteresting query returns.

Social networking is also changing how consumers search. From 2006 through 2008 MySpace and variants of the social network's name was the most searched term. In 2009 Facebook, et.al became the most searched term. More than 10% of search queries included some form of the Facebook brand.

"Analysis of the search terms reveals that social networking-related terms dominated the [search] results, accounting for 2.48% of the top 300 searches," writes Hitwise.

Search strategies for 2010

BizReport Research Library