• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, August 18, 2015

It's not magic, although online search -- the media that has become the backbone to augment many technologies like Microsoft Windows 10, and businesses such as Google -- may sometimes seem that way to those who don't fully understand how it works.

Discovering the answers requires reading the numbers and the data in consumer search queries to identify the challenges that lead to a solution. That solution becomes the service, the content, the answer. Google does it all the time. Here's a reminder that marketers can too.

Google made it obvious Monday in an announcement about Project Sunroof. A video posted to YouTube announcing the service ran through a few homeowners' queries on google.com such as how many panels would a home need, who will install them, and how much would installing the panels save in electricity costs.

"We started looking for a better way to give them answers," per Google. "That's when one of our engineers got an idea."

Answer the Unanswered Questions

Queries give Google engineers and business development clues for the next creative idea and venture. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that many of the investments made by Google, including Google Ventures, includes data from search queries. From those queries Google launched Project Sunroof. 

Retailers and brands have the same fodder from their Web sites, as I'm sure you know, as search marketers. Sometimes when we're too close to a subject we forget to combine the data from Web trends with Web site searches.

Parents, for example, began to start thinking about sending kids back to school in August, but marketers for brands and retailers need to identify these trends from search on engines and their Web sites much earlier. 

Mine the Data

Bing tapped into its rich search data and predictions algorithms, Bing predictions technology, compiling a list of five most-searched topics for this back-to-school season. The Bing predictions technology analyzed search signals, social and cultural signals and more to develop its top five predictions for what parents are thinking about for this back-to-school season.

Bing's data identifies the top education and lunch concerns, as well as social anxieties that parents are thinking about this fall. It would be so easy to take those concerns and create content, driving the content to Microsoft sites or businesses. Brands could do the same with content.

In the book titled Content Marketing Strategies for Professionals written by Bruce Clay and Murray Newlands, the authors explain how to become a destination for answers based on the content. They suggest curating content and producing original content. I opt for producing original based on data from search queries when resources are available.

Use the data collected from all this to retarget advertisements and content.