Eye tracking is fascinating to think about in and of itself. Interestingly enough, Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing Interactive spoke with WebProNews about eye tracking research. According to her, the research endorses universal search.

As she explains, marketers need to ask themselves if their videos, images, and graphs are doing their jobs on pages. These elements should be reinforcing the brand and pointing people in the right direction. If not, she advises marketers to conduct keyword research to determine if the users even want the universal elements.

However, if users search for an item such as video, they need to see that video on the landing page. Thurow takes it one step further and says that they need to see it above the fold. This user behavior is referred to as “scent for information” and marketers need to validate it.

Thurow also discusses information architecture and, surprisingly, points out that most SEOs aren’t good at it.

“The reason SEOs are terrible information architects is, mostly, [because] they don’t see the big picture,” she says.

Users often have to browse multiple pages on a website because the search engines are not always accurate. Thurow calls this action navigating, not querying. Unfortunately, many SEOs still spend most of their time focusing on querying. She says SEOs aren’t objective and don’t see navigation in the way that it should be seen.

On the other hand, information architects focus more on navigation and ignore querying. Although a balance between the two is ideal, it is not likely. Thurow says if SEOs and information architects work together, a good website could be produced.

Are you addressing these eye tracking and information architecture needs?