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It’s amazing, sometimes, how a little piece of information can be just what you need to take your next step....
That’s why the Web can be so powerful – it’s just chock-a-block with information that could be useful to you. I say “could” because there’s a catch: you have to find it first. Finding what you know is easy. But finding what you don’t know can be very difficult.
Take the most popular form of info-gathering: a keyword search on Google. But if you don’t know what you’re looking for – what it’s called, how it’s referred to – how will you know what keywords to type in?
For a similar reason, I actually miss the card catalogs at libraries and wish they’d bring them back. Why? Because you didn’t have to know the exact title, author name or subject. You just had to be approximate, because you could then scan the cards, forwards and backwards, to uncover what you might be looking for. It was a delightful process of discovery that could help you find books you didn’t even know you wanted to read.
It’s also why human give-and-take remains so damned important. In the last week, I attended two live events where helpful participants suggested valuable Web sites I would never have found on my own – I wouldn’t have known where to look, or what keywords to type in to find them.
This tells me at least two things: One, you shouldn’t count on keyword searches alone as a way to drive traffic -- you need to get people talking about you, live and online. Two, to find what you need that you don’t know about yet, you need to keep your ears open.
Where have you picked up some good scoops lately?
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Comments
As a librarian who also studies marketing (and is a huge MarketingProfs fan, btw), I couldn't resist mentioning that you can always ask your friendly neighborhood librarian for help in figuring out the best keywords to use to research a topic. We do that all the time and love to help! Also, while we don't use print card catalogs anymore, you can still find lots of great, and often unexpected, stuff in our online catalogs even if you can only be approximate. You just have to know how to search it, so just ask a librarian to show you. :) I do agree that Google makes finding some kinds of information a lot easier, but it can't ever replace good advice from people who are knowledgeable about a topic, and librarians are a great, though often underutilized, resource.
Thanks for the great work!
-Jill
Posted by: Jill Stover | 04.14.06
"The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it." -- Samuel Johnson
Posted by: Ann Handley | 04.14.06
How true it is. Thank goodness for the blog. It is a back door into the spotlight or something along that line. Blogs are the great equalizer I believe in the issue of being seen. Also notice boards, forums are quite good.
I do like the comment about the librarian. They are a good source.
Posted by: Tim Whelan | 04.16.06
No body can deny that Blogsphere is the best region to interact, discuss and get the contemporary information from the heart of people. These days people have shifted from searching in normal google search to google blog search and to other blog searcg engine like feedster.com.
I love to share information on FMCG on my blog and like to answer queries on the best forum i.e. MarketingProfs. I have recently joined it and learnt a lot by looking into the previous post and the fresh responses on the Open posts.
Its something like, i am all prsent on the net, to wait for the next mail from markeingprofs for the latest post or look into my feedreader for any update in their XML sheet.
The decade is that of "Abundance of Information: Thanks to Blogs"
Posted by: Nitin Kochhar | 04.17.06
KeywordSpy.com - Competitive Intelligence
KeywordSpy.com is a Keyword Research Tool that helps identify what keywords competitors use, with results actually reflecting what advertisers are using at the current time. A search engine tool that generates keywords for ad campaigns in search engine sites.
Posted by: Michelle | 09.22.07