If you have, you may have noticed a slight tweak to the appearance of the home page. Google has increased the size of the search box:
Google homepage: before (left), and after 9.10.2009 (right)
With this “supersized search box,” Google has re-emphasized their focus on the basic keyword search. Despite continual innovating and expanding their focus, the company has not lost sight of the fact that most people begin with a simple search. It’s hard to remember a time before Google, before Yahoo, before Excite, AltaVista and Lycos[1]. Back then you had to know someone who was an expert on the topic. Or maybe you headed to a library to look up articles on specific topics. If you were lucky, maybe it was even available on microfilm.
No, that’s not a computer monitor.
Today, we don’t have to target a specific author, title, or type of content. We search by category or keyword, trusting that something relevant will bubble up, and gradually refine until we find exactly what we need. Forgot the name of that old TV show, or looking for information on a specific breed of dog? Just scan the best information until you find just the right piece of content. There’s something satisfying about browsing. You know everything that exists is at your fingertips, and it is up to you and the search algorithm to narrow down the options until you find exactly what you need.
I’ve learned that the same is true of people using SAVO. Speaking with our customers over the last few years, the desire to perform a simple keyword search is often one of their first instincts. A big part of what we do as a sales enablement application is to push the most relevant assets to a seller so they don’t have to “dig” for information themselves. To this end we provide tools including customized role-based landing pages, content aligned to sales methodology, guided interviews, dynamically generated documents, and more. All of these features help to provide people with the right information or subject matter expert before they begin to dig.
Sometimes, however, people want control over their search. They want to go to a search bar, type in a keyword, and browse for information. Like Google, SAVO offers people a variety of ways to get the right content. At the same time, we recognize that a sales enablement application must support the basic ability for people to discover answers themselves.
Sample of SAVO search results page.
[1] For more on this topic, read this blog post by Jennifer Woodard Maderazo.
