When Search Meets Web Usability

This is a good and useful book. It teaches crucial, overarching concepts conveyed by metaphors and detailed by action plans. After brief background, I’ll discuss its value for non-specialists and then for seasoned professionals. Then I’ll reveal some weaknesses and conclude with my final recommendation.

The non-specialist – whether a multi-titled, small business manager or a CMO managing a team of usability and/or search marketing employees or vendors – will find models by which to think creatively about search engine optimization, usability, and salient intersections between the two. Especially useful is the emphasis on the three main kinds of searches – navigational, transactional, and informational – which motivate searchers and should structure a website’s landing pages and navigation.

Search engine optimization (SEO) specialists will benefit from (re)acquaintance with the business of usability, and vice versa. While much of the information will be familiar to specialists, the book provides enough new concepts and tools to make it worth buying. For example, the modeling of return on investment (ROI) assessments will help managers prioritize marketing resources among all marketing channels. No doubt readers will alter the spread sheet models to fit their business, but the focus on ROI spreadsheets and the specific examples manifest a results-based managerial vision that is central to successful web marketing. Another example of approaches and tools worth using and perhaps new to specialists, are the usability tests you can run in-house. Even consummate professionals need reminding of the several errant myths of usability explained in the book.

Does the book have flaws? Yes, plenty, but the pros outweigh the cons. Like most business books, too often this one states the obvious. Also, I disagree strongly with the book’s suggestion that web marketers can’t derive huge returns by learning the well-established, generic usability guidelines published by the likes of Jakob Nielsen, whose books tower above most if not all others. The former academic in me feels that Shari and Nick should have referenced other great books and web sites in both fields, especially where the concepts and, at least in one case, the terminology is borrowed and may not yet be an industry standard that needs no citation. The authors stride into a field burgeoning with great minds and with a higher percentage of very good books than in most business fields, and the lack of reference to them seems insecurity about the value of this book as an extension of predecessors’ work. There are better books than this one that web marketers of all stripes must read, and it would have been helpful to readers and to the integrity of the SEO and usability professions had the authors situated themselves within their community of SEO and usability masters.

I would have given this book 3.5 stars if that choice were available. But keep in mind that I’ve been a CEO in these two fields for 13 years, before which I taught Shakespeare and other literature at a major university – and I continue to resist grade inflation. So, 3.5 stars means, buy the book, use its many helpful parts — and read the great books too!

Rating: 4 / 5

If you are embarking in search or have been aligned with SEO for a number of years, this book, When Search Meets Web Usability, by Nick Musica and Shari Thurow, highlight the importance of understanding the user experience throughout the entire process. Shari and Nick both clearly define the importance of creating the flow from the initial key word search or a more informational; long tail search to how companies should define Web usability to create a satisfying experience.

This book shows very clear examples on how to create search process to easily moving the user to the specific information they are requesting to creating the conversion. The one problem I uncovered when I started reading it is that I could not put it down.

When Search Meets Web Usability gives an in-depth background on search engines, indexes, robot tags, and meta tags and how these tools impact SEO and help your Website to be available to those users that are searching for your solution.

Nick and Shari also provide real world case studies from what they have learned and acquired through their many years of working within search. They provide strong metrics that back-up their real world examples. Having the right keywords that your users use to obtain information, website usability that is streamline and provides a user a clean way to move through the site to obtain their information, and provide a conversion method (tag) are the key drivers to help create the perfect intersection between search and usability.

Professionally as a consultant I’ve utilized key learning’s from this book and implemented these attributes for many clients, including Prudential Financial, Inc. I highly recommend this book to those in college as well as those professionals that are seasoned with SEO.
Rating: 5 / 5

Search engine optimization and usability experts provide tips on how to bridge the gap between search engines and a web site, covering all the basics of how people use web search, what makes users click on a search listing, and how to understand user behaviors that make them choose one web site over another. A top pick for any collection strong in Internet usage and optimization methods.
Rating: 5 / 5