According to several researches over 70% of computer users experience that finding relevant data fast and easily would be very important to them. No wonder, that many companies are racing in this area. Who possesses the best technology, is likely to become extremely rich and powerful.

The bad news is that over one third of users experience the opposite. For search engines and developers working with them, this is big issue. The million dollar question is ”how to help user to find relevant and accurate information fast and easily?”. This is something where search engine design plays a major role. If you wonder what search engine design is and what is has to do with your SEO / SEM campaign, read on.

To find information people use various strategies. Some prefer to use search engines, some directories, others mail a friend or make a lucky guess. One of the most important issues that affect how search engines work and what direction the algorithm is going, is answering the questions like ”how users seek information?” or ”what kind of strategies they use?”. These are the basic questions that search engine design tries to answer and react. Search engine design is understanding how people seek information and modifying search engines so that they match expectations as well as possible. Everything else is only the cause.

Understanding this puts traditional search engine optimization and marketing to new light. SEO / SEM tries to outsmart how search engines algorithms are build, in other words find mathematical formulas behind search engine design. To crack the algorithm and success well in search engines, it is crucial to answer basic search engine design questions like:

• What is my target audience.
• What kind of searchers they are.
• How they seek information.
• What kind of information are they seeking.
• What keywords do they use when seeking information.

The old rule ”make pages for users, not for search engines” gets a brand new glow. The search engines rank pages / sites by how well they match to search engine design issues. Issues that define search engine design are pretty much defined by user. A SEO can manipulate backlinks, keywords etc. to very large extend, but finding the right balance is difficult.