Improving on-site search functionality can benefit a site by contributing to a better user experience, and by reducing the barriers for users to reach their destination pages.
There are a variety of tools that you can use if your site does not already have a search functionality; I won't second guess which search application will best suit your site.
There have already been posts on various blogs about best practices for implementing site search (such as: label the button 'Search' and not 'Go', search case-insensitively by default, always recommend refinements to searches which generate no results, etc. Stoney deGeyter covered a lot of the important usability aspects last year.) In this post, I'd like to suggest some different techniques you can implement to get more benefit from your site search.
It is worth considering that, as with web-search, the type of queries made through on-site search can be grouped into categories of 'intent':
- Navigational: The immediate intent is to reach a particular page that the user has in mind, either since they visited it in the past or because they assume that such a page exists.
- Informational: The intent is to acquire some information assumed to be present on the site. No further interaction is predicted, except reading the contents.
- Transactional: The intent is to perform some web-mediated activity. The interaction constitutes the transaction defining these queries, and they are the most difficult to evaluate.
(Adapted from the concise descriptions supplied by InfoVis.)
With these in mind, we'll start by looking at collecting data to help you in this project.
Review Search Analytics
Not a tip, but the place to start is by collecting some data about the way users search on your site. Your analytics package should include a feature to monitor the use and effect of your on-site search. Google Analytics hides this under Content -> Site Search. Follow the site search instructions to expose your search query parameters to Google, and you'll be able to view a dashboard - such as that shown below from Mixcloud - showing metrics such as the percentage of visitors making refinements to their initial search, the average time spent on the site after searching and the percentage of searchers who left the site after seeing the search results.
If that wasn't enough, you can see the volume of each search made, those stats broken down by keyword:
Use Search Behaviour to Guide Site Structure
A simple review of this information can often give actionable items. In the example above, a lot of searches are for specific genres of music. This suggests that the users may prefer to find content based on a style they like, and the site architecture or navigation could be adapted to suit this behaviour. For example: a simple change could be to add a 'Genres' menu / tagcloud / etc - and populate it with the most searched-for terms.
User experience could be further improved by helping users get straight to the pages which receive the most navigational search queries - in this example by giving a front-page feature link to the mixes by Erol Alkan
Use Search Behaviour to Guide Site Content
A massive opportunity for many larger sites is to look at the search terms that receive high volume, but result in a high percentage of people leaving the site. In these cases, your users are telling you precisely the type of content or products (for e-commerce sites) they'd like you to provide! You can, and should, action this right away.
Using Constrained Search
Since search can be considered as a navigational tool that helps users to find the page they need in a more effective way than browsing through long category lists, sites which have a fairly strict site architecture can reflect this in their on-site search. Instead of having a 'free search' text box, they can have a number of fields which 'constrain' users to search in a way that matches the structure of the site.
For example, TrustedPlaces have a 'search feature' which asks users to enter a place type and a postcode.
This type of search form ensures that users are entering enough search information to ensure a quality result on the first search. If the results are disappointing (by being too broad, for example) then they will have to refine their search, or may simply leave the site.
Hijacking Search Queries
In many searches with navigational intent, users will benefit from being taken directly to a content page, rather than a results page. For example, a search on SEOmoz.org for 'ranking factors' could be improved by taking a user directly to the Ranking Factors page, rather than the search results page for that query.
The main SEO benefit of taking users to a content or browse page, instead of a search page, is that it encourages users to link to your well crafted page for 'widgets' rather than just the 'widgets' search results page - which is less likely to rank in Google and less likely to convert.
It wouldn't take long to do a review every week / month of the top hundred searched-for terms, identify navigational searches, and map these to the intended target page.
Have a unique URL for each search result
If your search results URL isn't unique to the search query submitted (e.g.: because you have used a POST form directly to the results page) means you could be missing out on the opportunity for lots of search traffic. Google typically avoids returning search results pages in it's own reults, but in many cases, the 'search results' are atypical and could be a relevant page to return.
For example, I find My IP Neighbors a very useful site. If their search page redirected to a URL that looked like www.myipneighbors.com/check/www.seomoz.org then they could well compete in the long tail of web searches for domain names.
PPC Landing Pages
One of my favourite pieces of social-research show that users searching for singular terms (e.g.: toaster) are further along the buying process, and should be sent to a product page, where as plural searches (e.g.: toasters) indicate that the user is looking for comparisons and responds best to being offered a range of options.
For people managing paid search campaigns, this means that site-search results pages are a quick way to generate a comparison landing page - and these pages typically have low bounce rate as users tend to visit at least one or two returned results.
The 'toasters' search demonstrates a lot of PPC campaigns using this quick and valuable technique, including sites such as MoneySupermarket and Lakeland Plastics. By contrast, Asda are using this technique to send 'washing machines' traffic to a page that reads "We're sorry but there are no results for your search" - please don't waste your PPC budget like this!
Using web search keywords
I think this is a brilliant idea for anyone who can apply it to their site. If the visitor has come from a web search engine, then you can pre-fill the search box with their search term. A very basic example of this on Youtube is shown below.
One of my favourite implementations of this was on Flickr. If you went from web search to an image page, the site-search box would be pre-filled, and a pop-up message over it indicated how many more images could be found for that search term.
For example, it would say "Search Flickr for 809 other images matching 'mexican wrestler mask'". This aims to keep people on the site for longer (and from not going back to web- or image-search) but for some reason, I've not seen this feature on Flickr for a while.
There's only so much that can be said in 1,300 words - if you have any particular questions about on-site search, feel free to drop them in the comments, and please do share any particularly creative uses and examples of site search that you've seen online.
Rob, very good in-depth post with good high-quality outlinks. Nice job.
On one thing I don't agree with you, and that's your hijacking example at SEOmoz's search tool. The Yahoo search tool returns at the query 'ranking factors' several SEOmoz posts on that topic, and especially in the field of ranking factors, importance shifts in ranking factors over time are quite important. What's 'hot' at a given time, can be 'not' at another.
In general, when searching for a specific keyword (regardless if at a search engine or on-site), multiple answers most of the times provide more insight on a particular topic than some sort of an 'I feel lucky' search redirect.
Edit: I'm sorry Rob to have overlooked your message that not you but Distilled wrote this blogpost. My remark above still holds though! ;-)
Thanks for your comments. I did write the post, and I work for Distilled.
You're right, the 'ranking factors' example on SEOMoz might not be an ideal candidate for this.
However, it's not hard to contrive a situation where your own category pages are better than a SERP. Eg: if a visitor to your e-commerce site searches 'blue widgets', then the blue widgets category page is precisely the page they want to see - and you should have focussed efforts on that page to make sure that it converts well and with a high average basket size.
Excellent post. Or it would be if it had not made my full in-tray even fuller. I did not even realise that functionality was in Analytics (doh) and the results are fascinating even before I have started playing with it.
Thanks
Yeah - it can also be as much fun as looking at the long-tail search queries that have driven traffic to your site. On my hobby cooking site, for example, people have been doing site searches for "cooking fish in newspaper" (handy - I have an article about that), "venision" [sic] and "world" (I have no idea...).
Very nice post, Rob
However, I have a question regarding "have a unique URL for each search result"
If you have an existing page about a "search query", and you realised that people found this page in your website's search results by using a relevant search query (but not exact match). What will you do?
Take an example, you have a page "www.example.com/chocolate-milk-shake", and there are quite a few people search "tasty milk shakes". Would you create a new page about "tasty milk shakes" or redirect the old link to the new one (to avoid duplication)? Or any other action?
Thanks
It depends on many factors, such as:
- relevancy of that content to the query, compared to other pages on your site
- the number of results that search would return if not hijacked
- the number of pages and keywords you are targeting in organic websearch
- the percentage of people who visit the non-exact match page from that search result, and are satisfied with it.
Think about the user experience of the search with and without the redirect. Err on the side of caution, but look at the numbers and you should see the right answer.
For search on my site, I use Adsense for Search and I haven't been able to figure out how to tie in Analytics to show me what visitors have been searching for. Does anyone know how to integrate the two?
Interesting post, read about the same thing on A list Apart. Accually made my own post about it! :)
My organization has been looking at adding a search box to our site. I think you've just persuaded me to go ahead and try it out. Thanks!
I like this analysis, it is proven that potential consumer will leave your site within seconds, if the information is hard to find. Implementing these search options to make a website more user friendly, and to make information available to the viewers in seconds can increase your ROI significantly.
Thanks again! It is important to consider, when doing business online
Gervais Group LLC (link removed)
the images are not loaded, it is a shame because it is very interesting
Thanks for letting us know, Laura!
Hi,
I just wanted to notify you that need photographs in your post are no longer visible on Google chrome, Safari or Firefox I am using a Mac I have not checked with the other versions for Windows however I don't believe that would make a difference.
I hope this helps,
Thomas
Thanks for pointing that out Thomas! We'll work to add the images back in. For right now, you can see them at
https://web.archive.org/web/20091028111326/https://www.seomoz.org/blog/using-on-site-search-on-your-website.
Great post Rob. Not much to add that hasn't been said. I will add a small point though.
"There have already been posts on various blogs about best practices for implementing site search (such as: label the button 'Search' and not 'Go')"
I believe both "search" and "go" are equal in recommended use. A major benchmark I use is Amazon. I've always assumed they have their own stable of usability experts. They use "go".
Excellent post.. and delivered when i needed it most.
We are preparing a coupon site and i am thinking about more exact search implementation for that site. While I am implementing the site search functionality for my site in google analytics. I am unable to find query parameter and thats why my site search in not showing me any visitors.
So i am not able to track any search and thats why not able to find exact search behaviour
Can someone give me the hint about how i can find query parameter?
bleow is the example of my sites searh url
https://www.xyz.com/search/searchquery - in this type of url how can i find search query parameter?
Thanks and Great Post..
The simplest thing to do in this case would be to look at your 'content' report in Analytics, filtered by only those pages including "xyz.com/search" - you'll then be able to see the top search queries etc, and see how many people leave the site after visiting that page, etc.
More consumers are searching more frequently than ever before. Even more, these consumers are searching across a wide variety of media, which means consumers also have more choices than ever before.
It's important to enhance the user's experience on your site to make it a positive, convenient interaction free of frustration; otherwise, they'll visit a competitor's site. A quality on-site search engine can streamline consumer searches on your site and improve user experiences with you. Companies need to remember that a positive user experience also impact SEO. How?
A great user experience-->more repeat visits and higher click-through rates-->enhanced SEO.
You mention using search behavior to guide site content. I've found that a good content architecture actually helps on-site search performance (accuracy), especially for Google search appliance. There are so few settings in GSA, so that a good structure makes a world of difference. GSA struggles on large, "flat" sites. In other site search offerings, you can add weight to different on page/on site factors of course.
I've had quite a chat with our AdSense reps about using search keywords - I wanted to look at the referring source, if it is Yahoo, Google or Bing then check the keywords and automatically run a site search to display at the bottom of the page. Sometimes the highest ranking result in the SERPS is not the most relevant - and then display AdSense ads around the search results.
Apparently I can't display AdSense as the user hasn't actually pressed a site seach button which is a little disappointing as I thought it was a great user experience and a good revenue generator too. Damn Google and their pesky ethics! ;-)
I always have blocked SEs from indexing my search results pages.
Always thought that if the engines use their time on my site indexing does they could drop some of my other unique content pages.
Anyone done some testing around this on large sites with small/medium authority?
I guess I could use index/nofollow and not have SEs going round and round on my filter the search links.
If your search results pages look like search results pages, then I'd probably robots.txt them out, to avoid wasting googlebot's time on crawling pages that it's never going to index.
The other search engines don't seem so picky about returning on-site SERPs, so maybe you could let them in? I'll let anyone chime in if they have a site which gets organic traffic to internal search pages.
Good ideia. Opening them up to other SEs.
And as to looking like search results pages, yep they are a list of links with a picture and category, sub-category info.
Thanks
Thumbs up for including mixcloud :) a great site!
As to site search - its v.useful stuff indeed - however the tech restraints are frustrating - having worked with enterprise level site search packages and also off-the-shelf budget options its frustrating to find one that does a decent job!
But even if it doesnt work that well you can still look at the analytics :)
Great post. Im not sure that "Hijacking" a search term would be the best solution but I think the tools you have shown will help inorder to make a post designed to go after the most searched phrases.
I like the little bit of design information regarding "go" verse "search". We typically use "Search" in the field where people type and "go" as the button.
I do think the strong your websites wireframe the less important search is; however, we always have it on our websites and typically use Google's paid search (without ads).
I think the important message is having the 'search' text present - which you do.
However, if you're feeling brave, and if you have the historic data, it would be interesting to change the button text, and see if you get a change in the percentage of visitors using the search feature, and monitoring how that changes their visit and their satisfaction with the site.
Nice Post.
I have a question though. Do you think that site search should be used even on small sites? I'm talking maybe 20-30 pages tops on the site? It would seem, and this is just my opinion, that a search on a site this small would be overkill.
Thanks.
Good question.
To be honest, on a 20 page website, it is practical to link to every page from the navigation menu or at least from the front page.
I guess you do this already, so if you have the volume of visitors, you could probably try putting a basic search box on the site for a few weeks, and seeing what people search for.
Hi Rob,
Brilliant little piece about Singular Vs. Plural terms and the buying process. I have long held the opinion that there should be, and probably is, a distinct difference when it comes to searcher intent as it pertains to one version and the other. It is somewhat puzzling to me that there is not a larger distinction in SE algorithms to account for this.
we been working with our developer for 3 months after reviewing site search from analytics, however we are not 100% happy, I'm planning to implement google paid search.
Really very nice information. This information is something new for me.
What aren't you happy with?
I am happy sir. Thank you for your great information.
I believe Kenneth meant to reply to the comment above yours moonheart.
But all the same, I'm happy to know you're happy :)
Really nice post and execellent idea.