Consider the fact that search is the second most popular online activity (behind email) and that search is your Web site visitor’s favorite means of locating information. Search is more than just a utilitarian tool for the navigationally challenged. It is the means by which we gather information and form opinions. Armed with this knowledge, search becomes imperative rather than an implement-and-forget technology that doesn’t directly affect customer relationships and the bottom line. As such, what your business presents to the world through search results deserves a thorough strategy.

As the universal locator for products, information, services and relationship-building search compels us to seek more information that we ever have before. We type in our query and expect the results to reveal knowledge – information about products, services, people, places, industries, news, events, and yes, even new relationships.

So which department should be involved in the research, integration and maintenance of the product? To be truly effective, one department should not solely own search. Make multiple people across several departments responsible for getting the information that’s in their heads, on their hard drives and one their desks into your Web site’s search results.

Let those with the knowledge share their knowledge with your site’s captive audience electronically, in seconds, through the search box. It’s been said that knowledge is power, so empowering your users with knowledge will improve your company’s value in their eyes.

It’s the flexibility that today’s best search products offer that makes cross-department knowledge-sharing so attainable. Publishing new results or modifying existing ones literally takes seconds.

It’s also the wisdom of human minds that can turn otherwise dry and uninteresting content into a searcher’s intrigue. Consider that a well-written search result can highlight positive attributes contained in lengthy but convincing review of your product, compelling the searcher to become more educated and closer to a purchase. A poorly-selling, over-inventoried product can become a must-have with an editorial review as the search result.

Your company is full of experts. Unleash their wisdom, and the data stored on their machines and fed to them daily through news, events and experience. And in so doing, make your site the powerful information resource your visitors want it to be.

By eliminating the boundaries hard-to-use technology puts on your company’s knowledge, next generation search products expand the amount of knowledge your organization shares thereby improving customer relationships, industry opinions, intellectual capital and very directly, your bottom line.

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