Here are a few things to keep in mind when working with phrases:
- Exactness of Phrases What if a user enters search text that is close to your micro content phrase, but the wording is not exact? For example, maybe your phrase is “create widget” but a user enters “creating widget.” Fortunately, Flare Desktop uses a scoring mechanism behind the scenes that allows for slight differences between a phrase and the text entered in a search. To account for searches that are not close enough to be handled automatically by Flare Desktop’s calculation, you should create alternate phrases. There isn’t a way to measure this beforehand; you simply need to test your output and adjust your micro content accordingly.
- Search Rankings If you create micro content, Flare Desktop considers only the text in the phrases and alternate phrases for the micro content search results. The content in the response associated with each phrase is not weighed. So the response that is paired with the phrase most closely matching the search query (or having the most weight) is used. If you want to help boost a particular micro content phrase/response so that it displays when a certain search term is used, you can add more keywords to the phrase or alternative phrases for that response.
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Synonyms If you create micro content, synonyms can help display the best search results. The search engine looks at the micro content phrases and alternate phrases that you have added to a file, but it also considers any relevant synonyms.
Example You add the phrase "couch" to a micro content file, but you do not add any alternate phrases. However, you have previously created a directional synonym for "sofa" that matches the term "couch."
In your HTML5 output, a user searches for "sofa," and the micro content response associated with the term "couch" is displayed.
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Analytics The response part of micro content is important, because it contains the information that the reader needs. However, the initial phrase (or search term) portion of micro content can be just as important. After all, the response will be completely useless if users never encounter it. It is vital that you begin with the correct phrases (or questions).
So how can you be sure you are using the right phrases? You could just rely on educated guessing, or perhaps you created a glossary some time ago that gives you an idea of what users might want to know about. But a better approach is to use analytics on your output, such as MadCap Flare Online, Google Analytics, or some other resource. After looking at reports of the most commonly used search keywords, you can create micro content with the same phrases. Flare Online’s analytics feature is particularly useful because it has a “Phrases” report that indicates whether a certain search term is associated with micro content in your project.
