According to a recent press release from Jupiter Research, "About 71 percent of online consumers use search engines to find health-related information, but only 16 percent find the information they are looking for."
"Despite strong demand for health information, most online consumers' search experiences are negative," said Monique Levy, senior analyst and author of the report. "The combination of high demand and poor experience means there is a significant opportunity for better engines and products in the market."
"Search engines must work toward striking the right balance between search efficiency, quality of results and proprietary feature sets," said David Schatsky, president of JupiterKagan. "Online consumers are interested in features that improve and facilitate their searches as long as they don't add an unnecessary layer of complexity."
I used this study to confirm what we talked about recently concerning vertical search: the opportunities are great in this sector (niche vertical search).
For example, 60 percent of online consumers will use general search engines like Google, to search for health related information. Yet another 42 percent will use other health search engines like WebMD, AOL Health and MSN Health & Fitness, according to JupiterResearch.
Just within health, think of the numerous niches and sub-niches you could create full of content and keywords that could be searched and found by consumers. We online marketers haven't even began to tap this huge, vast opportunity. It will be years, if ever, that the huge search engines will be able to offer pinpoint, exact results of a search.
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