Why Search is the Most Underutilized Tool On Your Site

HOW SEARCH IMPACTS YOUR BUSINESS GOALS

February 26, 2015

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TYPES OF WEB USERS DON’T NEGLECT YOUR AUDIENCE

Browsers

• Spend more time on your site using the

navigation you’ve setup for them

• More willing to learn about you to make

sure they are in the right place

• May not be loyal to your brand yet, but

will become loyal if they easily find what

they need

• More apt to read your content, but, lets

face it, they don’t read all of it

Searchers

• Spend very little time learning about the

site structure

• Drive down your “Time on Site” and

“Bounce Rate” stats if they don’t find

what their looking for

• Loyalty is secondary to their immediate

needs

• Not forgiving if they can’t find what their

looking for – They will move on to the

next site

• They get frustrated easily

Sorters

• Spend more time looking for tools on

your site that make things easier

• Enjoy using refinement tools such as

sorting and filtering

• Use configurators

• Looking for a personalized experience

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Searchers

Browsers

Sorters

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UNDERSTANDING SEARCH USAGE

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CORPORATE SEARCH INITIATIVES DOES ANYONE NOTICE

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WHERE DO VISITORS SEARCH? UNDERSTANDING SEARCH BEHAVIOR

The homepage is not the only entry point to your website. Because search

engines are so advanced, every page is a potential landing page now.

• Visitors are not design critics, they focus on usability

• They’re not going to tell you the page looks ugly

• They will tell you when your site is not understandable

• Make the search bar visible on all pages of your site

• Size of the search bar and submit button matter

ADAPT & OVERCOME HOW TO OPTIMIZE THE SEARCH EXPERIENCE

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WHERE TO START ADAPT & OVERCOME

Get the Numbers

How many people are using site search? This helps

understand numbers, now we want to look at what users are

looking for!

Source: Occam’s Razor, Avinash Kaushik

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WHAT ARE PEOPLE SEARCHING FOR?

ADAPT & OVERCOME

Keyword Reports

This tells you the most used keywords from the

searches on your site.

• What's your first impression and is it delivering for

your customers?

• Do you have content that supports these searches?

Source: Occam’s Razor, Avinash Kaushik

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DEEP DIVE ADAPT & OVERCOME

Look at the trends!

Search Exits are your bounce rate for your search.

In a few minutes, you have a picture to start analysis.

Source: Occam’s Razor, Avinash Kaushik

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MEASURE! ADAPT & OVERCOME

If the most searched product on your site was located on the second page

of results, what would you do with that information?

• The Number of Unique Searches

• Are people not finding your value?

• Are people missing quality information?

• Search Exits

• This is like your Bounce Rate

• Use Your Reports

• Top Keywords

• Conversions (by Keyword)

• Track the most used Filters and Facets

• Poor Results

• Boost Results

• Measure Revenue

• Subscribe to Notifications

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TESTING ADAPT & OVERCOME

FEATURES TO LOOK FOR

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TOOLS FOR SUCCESS FEATURES TO LOOK FOR

Intelligent Search:

Automated learning feature that adjusts relevancy over time

Persona Based Results:

Personalize your results based on your knowledge of them; Members, VIP’s,

Geography, Device, and more

Boost or Promote Results:

Override results to provide the best results at the top

Merchandising:

Create banner ads for items/promos that your are pushing or generally what

sells best

Faceted Navigation:

Allow users to sort and filter through your results to find what their looking for

Redirect Rules:

Create rules for keywords that need to a special landing page, take users

right to that page

Word Clouds:

Tools that help the user see other words used in the search that they can get

ideas of what they are looking for

Search Box Features:

• Synonyms

• Word Stemming

• Auto suggest

• Prefix Queries (partial part numbers)

MONETIZE YOUR RESULTS

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TIPS FOR HIGHER ENGAGEMENT MONETIZE YOUR RESULTS

Look at your HIGH VALUE PAGES or BEST SELLING ITEMS and Adjust results for these to rise to the top

• Boost results

• Run banner campaigns

• Setup Landing pages

TARGET VISITORS (i.e. Geo-target) & PERSONALIZE where possible

CATCH TRENDS as they are happening – Don’t set it and forget it

• Subscribe and login to look at reports. You may want to change boosting or setup landing pages for words that are trending

• Use the Conversion report to see what’s converting best and look for opportunities

• Check pagination activity

• Which facets are most used and most important to users

COMPARE to Google Analytics reports

• Exit rate from the search

• Click ratio – number of searches and not clicking on the results

Use Search tool for NAVIGATION

• Possible with the right tools

• It gives you guided navigation

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THANK YOU!

Q U E S T I O N S ?

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