Is on-site search failing your business?

In a previous post I suggested that website traffic that uses on-site search contributes to a higher percentage of revenue. In other words, if someone is using on-site search they are more likely to buy something. So how can we increase the effectiveness of on-site search?

Step 1. Understand how on-site search is performing

In our example, 18% of searches result in no products returned. This may be due to a poor search engine, or it may be due to people searching for things which are not relevant to the site. Either way people are searching for something they think they should be able to find.

Step 2. Identify who is leaving the site after search

Another indicator of poor search results is % Search Exits. In this example 19.54% did not follow any links on the results page. Instead they just left the site. This suggests that the search engine is not returning results that the visitor feels is relevant.

Step 3. Identify why people are leaving after search

In our example, if we drill down to examine the number of search results returned, we see that 19.67% of visitors who left the site after making a search had zero results returned in their search. That’s a lot visitors leaving the site after performing a search.

How using Google Analytics can improve on-site search

In this article we’ve seen how using Google Analytics we can compile a list of queries that produce zero results. This is done by setting up filters and implementing a few manipulation tricks to get a list of “Products Found 0: <keyword>” .  Then, we can check with the guys who look after the on-site search engine to make sure that we’re returning all the results that we can.

Get feedback from the searcher

If the search engine is as good as it can be, one thing that can be done to improve the user experience is allow the visitor to give feedback. For example, a pre-populated form allowing the searcher to enquire about the item they are searching for. This gives the visitor another chance to find what they were looking for and starts a dialogue with the website.