Add Content to Your Website without Adding Content

If you are reading this, you already realize the need for great content on your website. But you also know the challenge to creating relevant, compelling and consistent web content - it's hard.

One application you might want to consider that takes no additional content-creation time is the Google Custom Search Engine. We've been using Google Custom for over a year now on Junta42.com, and although it won't answer any major content issues you have, it's a valuable tool to add to your content arsenal (some call this tool "vertical search").

Here's How Google Custom Search Engine Works
You first need to program Google Custom into your current website or microsite.  From talking with the developers that programmed mine, it's relatively easy. You pick the format and the brand elements. Most of it you can do without programming knowledge.

Second, you add websites that you want Google to search that will define your targeted search results. For example, if you are a welding distributor, you might want to include content from Welding Magazine or Miller Electric. You can include as many websites as you want. The goal here is to only include those sites that have the type of content you want to show your customers and web visitors.

Now, when someone types in a keyword, it will search the content from all the sites you have in your Custom Search database.

The image on the right is about 20 of the 153 websites we have as part of Junta42 Custom Search. You can see how easy it is...just type in or paste the URLs and you are done.

"No Results" Are for Losers
We initially used Google Custom because we didn't have much content when we launched the site last summer. We launched with around 100 articles in the system, and we were afraid to have too many "no results" responses if someone typed in a long-tail keyword into our search bar.

Google Custom to the rescue. By integrating Google Custom into our search, we were assured that we would have results for any type of search, and could point our customers in the right direction, even if the content wasn't on our site (which is always okay with us).

Now that we have more than 2,000 articles, we only use Google Custom for results that return a low amount of articles or no results. In the example to the right, I typed in "welding" as the keyword.  Since our site wouldn't return much on welding (only one article), Google Custom results show up underneath, consistent with the look and feel of the rest of the site. We call them "Google Targeted Results."

If you are looking for a quick and easy tool that can give your online users a better overall experience in finding the content they are looking for, you may want to give Google Custom a look.

For those of you who need a more robust solution, check out the folks at Convera, who do an outstanding job launching vertical search portals in a variety of industries. They include some excellent examples as well.

Related Articles:

• Do What Google Does with Your Content Marketing
• Will Cuil's Search Engine Dent Google's Armour?
• Is Data-Driven Content the Next Killer App?

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Comments

[Brian Massey]

The folks at OneSpot.com offer a solution that looks at the sites you specify PLUS the sites that tend to link to them. They've sourced content for the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal sites.

One more solution to consider.

[Joe Pulizzi]

Thanks for the update Brian. I'll check it out.

[Евгений]

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