make your website search a marketing machine
TRANSCRIPT
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With: Mike Moran
Make Your Website Search
#sitesearch
A MARKETING MACHINE
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Your Hosts:
Mike Moran Owner; Biznology Guest Speaker
Mike Stricker Marketing Director; SEMrush
Host
#sitesearch
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Poll:
#sitesearch
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Takeaways:Today you will learn:
• Why website search is so hard to do well
• How to improve the results for both popular and less-common search keywords
• How to keep score so you can be sure that you are improving
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Mike MoranMike Moran
www.mikemoran.com
Make Your Website Searcha Marketing Machine March 17, 2015
Mike Moran
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
What is website search?
6
We’re not talking about search marketing
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
What is website search?
7#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC8
“This search engine stinks!”
▪ But a “good search engine” is not your goal. ▪ Your goal isn’t even to deliver
good results ▪ It’s to deliver the business
value of your website ▪ Search is a means to
an end
I didn’t find it and I always
find it on Google!
blanche/shutterstock.com#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Website search frequently disappoints visitors
9#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Why is site search so frustrating for customers?
▪ Google has createdsky-high expectations ▪ But website search is
actually a more difficult technical problem than web search ▪ And searchers often start out disappointed,
because they failed at navigation first
10#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Search is still too hard for searchers
▪ Searchers dislike typing ▪ Searchers struggle to find the right words ▪ Searchers try once, maybe twice ▪ Searchers don’t like rooting around ▪ Searchers won’t tell you what’s wrong
11#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
And searchers often search after navigation fails
▪ If they have already failed to find their answer through navigation, they start out cranky ▪ Searchers are often looking for harder-to-find
information ▪ Their answer might not exist on
your site
12#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
What’s worse, searchers think they are good at it
▪ Type just about any charactersinto Google and it works ▪ The Internet creates a content
marketplace where manyorganizations compete for thebest answer to any question ▪ Inside your organization, only one group is allowed
to answer that question, who can’t possibly cover as many bases, so the searchers walk away disappointed
13#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Your site doesn’t have Google’s quality clues
▪ Link analysis ▪ Social media activity ▪Web traffic
14#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Why do you need a good website search?
▪ “If they can’t find it, they can’t buy it” ▪ The larger your site, the more you need search ▪ Search provides free market research ▪ Good keyword suggestions for SEO ▪ Navigation is starting to depend on search
15#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
To improve, you work top down and bottom up
▪ For your most popular search terms, use the Top 40 approach
▪ For the rest of the searches, use the Long Tail Approach
16#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC17
Work the most popular search keywords first
▪Most search terms are unique ▪ IBM’s 1000 most
popular queries accounted for just 27% of all volume ▪ But it’s the easiest
improvement you can get
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Determine the right answers for keywords
▪ People use many different words for the exact same problem: ! system crash
! Windows failure
! blue screen of death
! BSOD
▪ The same page can be the right answer for multiple keywords
18#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC19
Follow the same process for each keyword
Choose a landing page for
keywords
Audit the landing
pageno
Start
Analyze the landing page’s metrics
yes
Improve the landing page’s content
OK?next keyword
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC20
If all else fails, cheat
▪Most search engines allow “Best Bets” ▪ Be sure to maintain
all hand-crafted results
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
The biggest bottom-up change is the engine
▪ So, which one is the good one?
▪What are yourrequirements?
21#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
If you want a free search engine, they exist
▪ The best is probably open source Solr/Lucene ▪ You still pay to install
and host it ▪ And to tweak it ▪ But you have all the
control you could ever want ▪ There are also many other options
22#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC23
A single search index for each language
▪ One place to search, so no need to know where to go ▪ Relevance ranking
works best with a single index ▪ If it didn’t, we’d
all be searchingDogpile insteadof Google
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
See what Volvo does with a “not found”
▪ It offers choices of what you might be looking for ▪ If you typed in a zip code, it seems
very smart
24#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC25
Get your site’s pages into the search index
▪ Push pages from your contentmanagement system OR ▪ Have a spider crawl your pages ! Remove spider traps that prevent
crawling
! Use site maps andcountry maps to create spider paths
Spider or CMS
Content Pipeline
SearchIndex
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC26
Improve your content pipeline
▪ Automated categorization ! Subject/Product ! Document Type ! Date ! Country ! Language
▪ Linguistics ! Custom dictionary or thesaurus
Spider or CMS
Content Pipeline
SearchIndex
Standardize Your Data
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC27
Use one search index per language
▪ Each language needs its own index ! English ! Spanish ! French
▪ But only one index for all content types: ! Parts ! Dealer Locator ! Content
Spider or CMS
Content Pipeline
SearchIndex
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC28
Make sure your pages contain the keywords
Use keywords in headings and titles Keywords in the early part of the page tell the search engines what your page is about. When a search engine sees keywords used frequently at the top of the page, that makes it more likely that the page is about the subjects related to those keywords. Sub-headings need keywords, too But keywords used throughout the body are also helpful. If it makes sense to emphasize your keywords by using bold, underscored, or italicized text, that gives the search engine further clues about their importance.
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Filter search results
▪Multifaceted search uses ontologies to drill down within search results ▪ You cannot get a
“not found”
29#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC30
Tune your search engine
▪ Do you have the right query defaults? ! AND/OR ! country/language filters
▪ Have you tested your ranking algorithm? ! Using the right factors? Clicks?
Links? ! Using the right weights?
▪ Have you tested your facet names?
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC31
Customize your search user interface▪Make search
easy to find ▪ Use drilldown in
search results instead of advanced search ▪ Optimize what is
displayed for product and document lists
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Make entering search keywords easy
▪ Put the search box on every page ▪ Use a search box with a search button or the word
“search” ▪Make it stand out—upper right corner is good ▪Make the box large enough for the typical keywords
32#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Not every interaction leads to revenue, but…
▪My database apps are running slow ▪ Upgrade to new
version for speed ▪ Compare the right
options and pricing ▪ Purchase the upgrade
33
Learn
Buy
Shop
Use
Get
Land
…focus on the ones that do
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
What are your key conversions?
▪ Online parts orders? ▪ Locate a dealer? ▪ Complete a contact form? ▪ Call on the phone? ▪ Your conversions drive your website search
success
34#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Revenue and usage show the importance of search
▪ Count the number of visitors that use search ▪ Find out how many searchers convert ▪ Calculate your search conversion rate ▪ Tally the revenue value of search
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC36
Results metrics drive your search improvement
▪ “No result” searches ▪ “No click”
searches ▪ “No conversion”
searches
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Use a keyword scorecard to track improvement
▪ Code the results red, yellow, and green ▪Most popular keywords ▪ Rank ▪ Result
rate ▪ CTR ▪ Bounces
37
tsi
tsi inc
tsi products
tsi returns#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
Get a 50% discount for the first six months
38
tsi
tsi inc
tsi products
tsi returns
▪ Three lucky clients—[email protected] ▪ Everyone else gets 20% off
SoloSegment.com
#sitesearch
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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC
What is required to improve site search?
▪ Site search isn’t just technology—it’s marketing ▪ Four major areas must be analyzed to identify
where your site search results need help
Content Technology Presentation Feedback
Content Coverage
Content Tagging
Content Quality
Site Architecture
Search Traffic
Search Success
Search Satisfaction
Search Conversions
Search Box
Best Bets
Search Results
Facets
Rank Tuning
Linguistics
Index Completeness
Search Navigation
#sitesearch
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Drawing:Three lucky attendees will win:
• Keyword Scorecard—50% off a SIX MONTH license. ($15,000 value)
#sitesearch
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Offers:
All attendees will have access to:
A Free 30-Day Trial of SEMrush Guru: http://bit.ly/SEMrushFREE30-Moran
#sitesearch
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Poll:
#sitesearch
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Questions?
#sitesearch
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Next SEMrush Webinar:
#sitesearch
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THANK YOU
Mike Moran Biznology @MikeMoran
Mike Stricker Marketing Director; SEMrush
@RadioMS
#sitesearch