As the world of search starts to become more natural to more people, a recent study has found searchers are less likely to use 1-3 generic keywords in their search, and are starting to get more detailed and use 4-6 words. This is known as long-tail searching.

This is according to a story from Hitwise, Longer Search Terms Becoming Popular.

To break it down - the first percentage is from February 2008 and the second is from February of 2009:

6-word searches: 4.38% –> 4.71%
5-word searches: 8.29% –> 8.72%
4-word searches: 14.53% –> 14.98%
3-word searches: 21.84% –> 21.68%
2-word searches: 24.73% –> 23.47%
1-word searches: 21.04% –> 20.48%

As you can see, six, five, and four word searches are increasing. While three, two, and one word searches are all decreasing.

This tells me that people are learning from search. Someone can’t just put in “coffee grinder” and expect to find what they’re looking for. They need to type in “krups automatic coffee grinder.”

This is exciting for another reason, as well. Research suggests that the longer a search term, the more inclined someone is to buying a particular item or service. This makes absolute sense, right? If you were just browsing for a toy car for your son, you’d type “toy car.” But if you were looking to buy a “yellow hot rod toy car”, you would search for that particular model with the intention to buy that product.

Ultimately, this trend is good for both searchers and for businesses. Searchers can skip the fluff and spam while going to websites that are selling exactly what they’re looking for. Optimizing your website using search engine marketing has never been so crucial. Find the audience looking to buy your product and rank high on the search engine result pages for business success!

Subconsciously this is what you’re asking yourself when you’re trying to hunt down a link on a site that you just can’t seem to find. It’s ridiculous to spend more than 1 minute to find something that should be very prominent on the page.

For example, last night I wanted to track the status of my income tax refund, so naturally I went to the IRS website. I sat there and stared at the screen for at least 1 to 2 minutes looking for anything related to “track my refund”…and nothing. I could not find it.

If this website were built with usability in mind they would know that during tax refund season everyone’s going to want to track its status. It amazes me that nothing on the home page directs you to the information you’re looking for.

My eyes started in the top left corner and worked their way down the left side because the list of items stood out to me. When I didn’t see it there I looked to the top right corner of the site and then down the right side. It then became a free-for-all as I tried to find what I was looking for. Still, I found nothing. I eventually got fed up with the site and did a Google search which led me to the page I struggled to locate.

I went through all that work to find out they haven’t even received my paper work! So, not only did I have a terrible user experience, but they had nothing on file for my claim as well.

This is a classic example of a site that tries to incorporate what they think is important on the home page. Too bad “tracking your refund” didn’t make their list of important things to include. Structurally and strategically, this site fails to take advantage of Web usability tactics.

It can sometimes be hard to be personal on a website. Your main goal is to sell products anyway, so what’s the point of interacting with a customer and providing a human face to match the strings of code driving the website?

Giving your company a little personality can start to build trust which is essential for a potential visitor. And if you utilize some of social media’s easy to use, free gathering places, you may even start driving extra traffic to your website!

The most recent hotspot on the Internet is Facebook. Initially just for college students, they’ve expanded to accept everyone regardless of academic status and provide quite a few avenues for networking purposes. Think of it as a more mature MySpace (which is becoming less and less relevant, especially for businesses). If you’re focused on selling in a higher age bracket than teenagers, Facebook is the way to go.

Twitter is the up-and-coming website that is starting to hit mainstream status. It limits the message you can post to 140 characters, so you can easily and quickly give potential customers updates on your products, offer Twitter-only coupons, or even ask for feedback. Companies have gotten pretty creative in how they use Twitter; you can generate buzz with an offbeat idea that catches fire throughout the blogosphere.

And that’s what social media is all about - providing people with a community area to engage in discussion. If somebody can ask you a question on Twitter and get a response, they know that you’re around, that you care about your company, and they may be that much more encouraged to purchase from you.