Offline Research for Online Results
Posted 12-16-2009 at 05:14 AM by jcmarin
The smell is overwhelming, not particularly nice but to me it is perfume (I am more of a nerd than most people). AH that bookstore smell is second only to new car smell! Until the advent of Google and other search engines all my questions found solution with a trip to the bookstore; even if I did not get my question answered I always learned something. This has created what I call a "book addiction" which for some reason the eBooks have not been able to satisfy completely.
Recently I had an epiphany, one of those moments where the last 10 pieces of a 1000 piece puzzle you were putting together seemed to find their place in rapid succession and you could almost taste that rare emotion that is only known to those who finish a crossword puzzle...maybe. It was in the travel section where I realized that almost everyone who likes books likes to read; most of those who like to read like to surf online. Most people that surf online are experienced enough to buy online and since the bookstores use a huge amount of money catering to "bookworms" (like me), the entire bookstore IS A LIFE SIZE REFLECTION OF ONLINE INTERESTS!
Knowledge is all around you, you don't need to go very far to understand what people are attracted to. I collected keywords from the title names and tags of books on the travel section and armed with the naughty emotions of a kid that finds away to the cookie jar, went to Google and researched these words.
Amazingly over 90% of the keywords were high traffic keywords. I picked around 30 looking at travel section books and excluded the obvious ones that mentioned places. I kept the keywords that helped the traveler make vacation choices or generic travel tips that help them save money on vacations regardless of the destination. Those keywords were highly searched.
Since I am such a book freak, I purchased 2 of these books and discovered that there was a lot of buzz on the travel forums I found about particular chapters of these books. In other words, the books answered the forum members’ questions before online people did; this was very surprising to me. I used the knowledge from the books (not a copy-paste) in my own words to answer questions and help people; this gave me instant credibility I did not have before.
I wonder if that is what everyone else is doing? =)
Recently I had an epiphany, one of those moments where the last 10 pieces of a 1000 piece puzzle you were putting together seemed to find their place in rapid succession and you could almost taste that rare emotion that is only known to those who finish a crossword puzzle...maybe. It was in the travel section where I realized that almost everyone who likes books likes to read; most of those who like to read like to surf online. Most people that surf online are experienced enough to buy online and since the bookstores use a huge amount of money catering to "bookworms" (like me), the entire bookstore IS A LIFE SIZE REFLECTION OF ONLINE INTERESTS!
Knowledge is all around you, you don't need to go very far to understand what people are attracted to. I collected keywords from the title names and tags of books on the travel section and armed with the naughty emotions of a kid that finds away to the cookie jar, went to Google and researched these words.
Amazingly over 90% of the keywords were high traffic keywords. I picked around 30 looking at travel section books and excluded the obvious ones that mentioned places. I kept the keywords that helped the traveler make vacation choices or generic travel tips that help them save money on vacations regardless of the destination. Those keywords were highly searched.
Since I am such a book freak, I purchased 2 of these books and discovered that there was a lot of buzz on the travel forums I found about particular chapters of these books. In other words, the books answered the forum members’ questions before online people did; this was very surprising to me. I used the knowledge from the books (not a copy-paste) in my own words to answer questions and help people; this gave me instant credibility I did not have before.
I wonder if that is what everyone else is doing? =)
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