Chapter 3
How We Search
A successful search acquisition strategy begins with understanding the searcher. Searchers themselves provide very little that indicates their intent. Search queries are an average of three words long, and more than 25 percent are only a single word.1
Fortunately, we have a great deal of data beyond the queries themselves to help us derive potential intent. Search engines track searcher behavior, and by looking at what searchers click on and what they search for next, search engines can learn a surprising amount about what someone might mean by those one to three words.
We can see much of what the search engines have learned just by looking at what content search engines rank highly for a particular query.
As we’ve learned, search engines also make a wide variety of data available that can provide detailed insight into the intent and motivation of potential customers.
