1. Focus
Most swickis should be targeted at a single topic, such as Windsurfing or California Mountain Biking. If you have both those topics on your site or blog, consider setting up two swickis to put on your site. Background - if you try to combine both of these topics in one swicki, it's impossible to create a good filter, because if you put both "windsurfing" and "California, mountain biking" into the important keywords filter, your Swicki will only return pages that have both windsurfing AND California mountain biking content.
Sometimes a swicki can have multiple topics - if you have a personal blog that covers many areas of interest, you can still create a swicki for it. In this case, don't specify any important keyword filters. Make sure the buzzcloud has a variety of terms that cover all your interests, such as "Globalization, Ultimate Frisbee, road cycling, San Francisco Clubs, Web 2.0, U2," and do those searches and promote the results that you like. The search results will be tagged and reranked based on what you and your readers like and dislike, so it's far better than a generic search box.
2. Filtering - slick filtering to tune results
The important keywords filter for Swickis is an easy balancing act. To get it right, enter just the one or maybe two search terms that apply to ALL the searches that your readers might do based around the topic of your Swicki. So if your Swicki is about the Amazon River, you'd enter the following filter: Amazon River. If you entered just Amazon, you'd get a bunch of results back about Amazon.com. If you entered just river, you'd get Mississipi, Danube, and other rivers flowing back in the results. Don't enter filters you don't need; in this case, like Brasil or water, or wildlife - because Amazon River is sufficient and adding more words could further restrict results and compromise relevancy. But zero-in as much as you need to, so if your Swicki is about Amazon River Fishing, by all means enter this filter: Amazon River, fishing.
If you don't apply any filtering, your search will return results just like a general search engine like Google or Yahoo (but still better because of the community learning and search result auto-tagging). If you apply too many filters, you will overly constrict the results. Note to Techies: the important keywords filter requires the results pages to contain all of the keyword filter terms, so it is a logical AND. We're thinking about ways to allow a logical OR behavior (either through filtering or by combining multiple searches).
3. Eyeballs - post it on your site or blog
Your Swicki has to be visible to be used. You can get the code to insert your swicki searchbox and buzzcloud on your site here. If you think your swicki is rocking on your site and you'd like to be considered for our webpage gallery, let us know here.
4. Fresh Buzz!
Don't let your Buzzcloud go stale. You can always add or change terms as moderator here. But with our new activity alerts and edit buzzcloud page, you see the search terms your users have been entering, and can easily tick a box to tag them and place them into your buzzclouds. Great thing is that the search results they found to be useful are also auto-tagged so users doing the same search with see the promoted results. Tech tip: if you want to enter a bunch of suggested searches, use the customize page, where you can enter a long list of searches in comma separated format.
5. Put some Spin on it! Promote or block pages or domains
Your Swicki has your point of view, so spin it! Promote the web pages and sites that you like, and remove those you don't! Your credibility will be judged by your users - if they click through and like your results, and you like the searches they are doing and tag them into your Buzzcloud, then you've created a useful tool for your community of interest. Publishing has always been opinionated; now search is too.
6. Expert Help
Get some experts around your topic to use your swicki - as they do, you'll be notified of their activity and will be able to tag their searches. Your whole community will benefit from their tagged search results.
7. Spread your Swicki
If you know other websites or blogs that share an interest in your topic, you can create a search ring around your swicki by having them post your swicki on their sites. You can get the link to give them for the code here. You retain full control as the sole moderator of the swicki.
8. Tell Friends and Readers
Blog about it, talk about it, email about it, tag it.
9. Be Easily Found in the Swicki Directory
Give your Swicki a name that will make it easy for users to find it in the Swicki Directory. Good names are topical and specific, such as "California Mountainbiking" or "Amazon River." It's not necessary to include "Search" or "Results" or "Swicki" in the name. If you have a personal blog and a swicki covering many topics, try naming the Swicki with the title of your blog or your full name. So "Jane Smith" rather than "Jane's Search," for example.
Don't forget to fill out the description field for your Swicki - when people do a search for a swicki, we show them results that match from the name and description fields.
Users browse the Swicki Directory by categories too, so make sure you tick the boxes for the one or two categories most applicable to your Swicki. For swickis that range over multiple topics for personal blogs, the best category is "Society."
If you don't see your swicki in the directory, and you'd like yours to be included, email us.
10. Stay tuned!
Lots we're working on - if you have any feedback or a tip you've discovered, let us know.