Site Search Engine

How search engine, like Google, work is what I learn from my class this week. On the outside-in, it is important to know how to bring your website to the top rank of search engine. However, on the inside-out, another thing you need to consider is how your users or customers find something within your website.

Site search engine helps your customers find what they want within your websites. Basically, it is a search engine that works specifically on your websites. Think about when you looking for a marketing class on Depaul’s website and don’t know where to start; there you go to the search box on the top right of the screen and type “marketing class winter 2010”. Then all the pages about marketing class in winter 2010 are brought to the SERP (Search Engine Result Page).

I think most medium and all large companies in the States has this site SE runs on their website, but what about small business and companies in other countries. After I have looked for some site SE companies, I found some site SE that you can install for free in some websites. The other companies, such as Google site search, Picosearch.com, coveo.com, wrensoft.com, offer their basic version for a price range of $100-$200 per year.




I personally suggest small company to utilize site search engine and will convince my uncle to do the same on our website.



Note: Of course, you can learn more about site search engine by using Google and Youtube.

Social media as a mean to build reputation

Social media is the topic that really catches my interests in MKT595 week 2 class. The discussion on how businesses use social media to promote their brands recalls me of news about Hollywood celebrities started using Twitter as a mean to communicate their activities to fan. Nowaday it is quite usual for famous persons to use Twitter or Facebook to tell their fans about what they are doing or thinking. Thinking about this, it would be interesting to share story about social media trend in Thailand.

In Thailand, though the majority of Thais do not actively participate in social media, many people have started using them rightnow. In political field, Abhisit Vejajiva, prime minister of Thailand, is currently using facebook and have around 40,000 followers. The ministry use Facebook as a mean to communicate the prime minister's activities and build supports. Also, the number of supporters or "like" could be the popularity indicators among new generation.

In entertainment field, I have already become a fan of a Thai comedian DJ, which now she has about 20,000 fans. Also, a friend of mine, who just released her first band album last year, created her band's Facebook page quite a couple years ago and used it as a mean to post her concert videos and tell people about where and when will be the next concert.

As I started searching famous people's name, I found their page on Facebook, though I never see Thai brands on any social media sites. I don't have knowledge about how much it cost to start a page on social media or create an application that has a brand merged in it. Compare Thai market to Western market, I would expect Thai companies that particularly target at youngster will do something more than pasting banner in social media sites within 2011.