What do I need to do to get a good search result?

1. Start with a broad search

I am starting to see people start with searches like:

“2 x 10 Southern Yellow Pine FSC“

“10″ Eastern White Pine Primed in Yellow“

You have to remember… You are searching for terms on web sites and when you are very specific there is a chance that those words will not exactly fit any web site and you will get no results back.

Instead, try searching for:

“FSC Southern Yellow Pine“

“Eastern White Pine“

2. Use the Refinement labels

We have created 7 different labels that are applied to each site.  Use them when you are looking for a product that is served by a certain sector.

Example:

a. You are an individual that wants to do research on hardwood floors. 

* You would type in “hardwood flooors” into the search and then click on “Manufacturer” to find just companies that MAKE hardwood floors (versus sell or install).

Explanation of Each Refinement

Contractor: These are companies that build stuff.  They are the ones that you would call when you need earth moved.  There are commecial and residential contractors in this refinement.

Retail: This is made up of companies that sell to the general public, directly to contractors or sell over the internet (take credit cards).

Wholesale: These are the distributors of the world.  They sell to the retailers.

Manufacturer: These are the companies that make stuff, mill things, process items, pressure treat material, etc.

Architecht/Design/Engineering: Find the teams that create the world we live and work in.

Industry Services: Companies that help the building industry in their day to day lives are in this category (ex. software companies, transportation, rail, etc.)

Search for FSC Companies and Products: This refinement ONLY searches the www.fscus.org web site.  If you want to search whether a company is FSC certified, type in their name into the search and then click on this refinement label.  You can also look for companies that sell FSC products though this isn’t the greatest feature of this site and is mostly limited to searches for “lumber” “plywood” etc.

***Note: It is not always that easy to tell what a company does from their web site so you may want to check up/down the supply chain when looking for the information you need.

3. Dig Deep

We have over 6000 web pages associated with this site and all of them have something to do with the building supply industry. 

SOOOO…. don’t be afraid to dig into the results.  Where you rarely look past the first page of results in Google feel free to do it here.  Under a “lumber” search, you will find hundreds of companies that have to do with the lumber industry and they all can’t be on the first page.

4. Try other Tabs

We have built this search engine to segment out traffic.  If you are looking for “span tables doug fir” don’t be afraid to move off the Industry tab and get into the Associations or Knowledge tab.  They have lots of great information on them.

We will break down the other tabs in later posts.