Good day all you SEOers! I’m glad you’re back to read another post about Information Architecture (IA) and search engine optimization (SEO). We are getting deep into meta data, and specifically we are talking about developing thesauri to build a good list of keywords and their related terms. At Search Engine Academy, not only are we all about SEO, but we also stress usability and good site architecture for finding the most relevant content fast.
If your site is growing because you’re following best practices of adding new, fresh, useful content, chances are you may have hundreds of pages, URLs, or documents, whatever you want to call them. By incorporating a site search box function, you can help your human visitor stay on your site longer, go deeper into your interior pages and help her solve the problem she has with YOUR business solution.
Or maybe you offer a very detailed information service website. It’s critical that you understand the different variations of the terms and language used by your web searchers so you can offer them accurate search results and get them what they need fast.
You’ll want to use the thesauri data in your meta data, because when the search results are displayed, if the reader doesn’t see her term highlighted, she’ll assume you have a lousy site search capability and she’ll be off to find another site that fits her needs.
Let’s use an example. I want to find information on “rotator cuff surgery.” I’ve had this done, so I know what I want to find in terms of useful material about what the surgery is.
And here’s what comes up:
Search Results for Rotator Cuff Surgery
Not too shabby – it looks like Web MD has put some thought and care into understanding their primary target audience is a non-medical person who wants to know more about the procedure.
You can create and install a hierarchical classification scheme and use subject headings. Amazon does an interesting classification scheme down the left side of your screen. Here’s what came up when I went looking for a book on sailing:
This is helpful, because I didn’t specify if I wanted fiction or non-fiction.
You have a lot of wiggle room to develop your web site’s thesaurus. It’s a matter of knowing the target audience.
Four Types of Thesauri
Let’s wrap up today’s reading with the four types of thesauri you could see on a website. Check out this useful diagram from “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web,” (Peter Morville, Louis Rosenfeld):
Thesauri Types (Image courtesy of "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web"
No Thesaurus – hey, it’s an option that 99.999% of us have on our sites.
Classic Thesaurus – Used at indexing and at the point of searching. It can be used for retrieval, and queries are pitted against the vocabulary of the thesaurus. It uses synonym management, hierarchical browsing and linking.
Indexing Thesaurus – Maybe you create a controlled vocabulary, but you can’t do synonym management. This will do the trick, even if it’s not comprehensive. It’s consistent and efficient. You can build browsable indexes using preferred terms that lets the searcher find documents from a single access point. This also allows you the ability to create a classic thesaurus, should you get the time, money and resources.
Searching Thesaurus – What if you can’t do a classic thesaurus because you have dynamic news content that changes every day? What if your site is so, so large that manually indexing is cost prohibitive? Well, you can develop a searching thesaurus to leverage controlled vocabulary at the point of searching, but not indexing. You can provide a set of results, then ask the searcher if she’d like to refine the search.
A searching thesaurus is good for browsing as well. Your web visitor can browse any part of the thesaurus and navigate to the document through a link in the thesaurus.
Well, that’s it for today. Think about if this is an option for your site, if it’s really large, and if it would keep visitors on your site longer and encourage them to go deeper into your web pages. Until next, keep it between the ditches!
All the best,
