Shopping

A smaller percentage of people, but still very many, use a search engine in
order to shop. After the research cycle is over, search queries change to
terms that reflect a buying mindset. Terms like “best price” and “free shipping”
signal a searcher in need of a point of purchase. Optimizing a page to meet the needs of that type of visitor results in higher conversions (actions
taken by a user that meet a sales or business goal) for your site. As we
mentioned, global search engines such as Google tend to reward research
oriented sites, so your pages have to strike a balance between sales-oriented
terms and research-oriented terms.

This is where specialized engines come into the picture. Although you can
use a regular search engine to find what it is you’re shopping for, some
people find it more efficient to use a search engine geared directly towards
buying products. Some Web sites out there are actually search engines just
for shopping. Amazon, eBay, and Shopping.com are all examples of shopping-
only engines. The mainstream engines have their own shopping products
such as Google Product Search (formerly called Froogle) and Yahoo!
Shopping, where you type in the search term for the particular item you
are looking for and the engines return the actual item listed in the results
instead of the Web site where the item is sold. For example, say you’re
buying a book on Amazon.com. You type the title into the search bar, and
it returns a page of results. Now, you also have the option of either buying
it directly from Amazon, or, if you’re on a budget, you can click over to the
used book section. Booksellers provide Amazon.com with a list of their used
stock and Amazon handles all of the purchasing, shipping, and ordering info.
The same is true of Yahoo! Shopping and Google Product Search. And like all
things with the Internet, odds are that somebody, somewhere, has exactly
what you’re looking for. Figure 1-2 displays a results page from Google
Product Search.