May 2007 - Posts

Trigger happy search
04 May 07 05:22 AM | Martin Vikkelsø on MondoSearch
If you have ever submitted a global search, you have most certainly been served a few advertisements as well.

In most cases these ads provide as a supplement to regular rankings for niche businesses. For more competetive markets, these ads are the only certain way of making it to the frontpage of a global result-page.
Naturally, displaying an ad on a local website can also be an advantage in order to gain the 'correct' attention of the viewer.

If your visitor comes looking for apples, dont serve him bananas. In fact you should serve him apples, and then throw a good offer (or applepie recipe) in on top!


With MondoSearch the ability to display certain extras, based on the submitted search, is called a SearchHeader.
The standard setup of this feature, will display the SearchHeader on top of the result list. However, this is just the out-of-the-box scenario.
In general you can choose to put the SearchHeader anywhere you like.
Actually you can see how a different placement of the SearchHeader works for the Vatican in my previous post. Notice the picture of Pope Benedict XVI triggered by a search for 'pope'


And that is exactly my point with this posting, to prove that despite the name 'SearchHeader', this product feature acts as a trigger. And this trigger can be used for almost anything.

I have enclosed a few live examples of the versatility of SearchHeaders.
  • Standard setup. Displaying a bit of HTML/CSS styled text on top of the search results
  • Speciel Effects setup. By Utilizing a bit of javascript you can use the trigger to popup a window with important information.
  • Full Monty setup. One of the oldest tricks in the CSS book is to 'hide' content with the display:none syntax. In not so many words you can hide everything but the searchheader on the result page.
    (Just remember to include an option to make the result list visible again.)

But these POC's doesnt limit the usage of this trigger. Another example is Mr. UseIT's signup to his alertbox newsletter whenever somebody searches for 'alertbox'.

Technically what happens is, that you can setup a word or phrase for MondoSearch to react on. This word or phrase is tied to a piece of client-side code you provide (HTML / CSS / Javascript or just plain text).
Whenever a user then searches for one of these terms, the code you provided will be rendered in the selected SearchHeader spot.

A simple feature, with limitless options.
The trick is to give your SearchHeader a layout that is subtle enough to be noticed, but not so extravagant that you lead your visitor on. Remember that your visitor searched for actual content - and not to be entertained by your Rube Goldberg-like SearchHeader.

I recommend starting of light with simple one-liners and small icons or images to emphasize and link to your important content. Then later you can start integrating campaign sign-ups or the like on top of the regular search results.


And this concludes my SearchHeader lesson for today. Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks
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