I have never really thought about searching as an experience, until reading this article by Shari Thurow on Searchengineland.com. While reading I realized that a lot of the arguments in the article are true. For example; if I can’t find what I am looking for on Google, I tend to blame them, instead of thinking about my own role, or the specific website’s role in creating a good searcher experience. Search engine, searcher and website all have some kind of responsibility. When these three elements are aligned, I agree that it adds value. Surely, if you find what you are looking for as easy as possible, you are a happy searcher.

According to the post “20 Surprising Statistics about Online Search Behavior” by Timothy Lorang, 82.6% of internet users use search, search directly drove 25% of all online U.S. device purchases and the average online research to offline purchase conversion rate for auto parts is 85%. These facts are interesting because they support the importance of creating a good searcher experience. Not only can search drive online sales directly, it also has a big influence on offline purchases.

Does the successful companies excel at creating successful search experiences? Or are their customers good websearchers? That is hard to tell and there could easily be other reasonable explanations. One thing is sure though – it shows the potential power of creating a good search experience. No wonder businesses spend big chunks of their budgets on paid search such as Google Adwords. At the same time though, I agree with Mr. Lorang, that improving your organic search results page rankings will benefit you in the long term, while the paid search have more short term benefits. Because what happens if you run out of money or can’t afford to be on top of the search page? Again this supports the idea that you have to focus on, and align all of the three elements in creating a good searcher experience, not just focusing on for example paid search, even though it can get you immediate results.

Who knows? –  there might well be more than three elements in creating successful searcher experiences, that has to be explored.