6 search tips that keep visitors on your page
Have you deprioritized the search function on your website? Then you're not alone. But it's a really bad idea, says our developer Henrik Hind Sørensen. Here you will learn why you should give the functionality some care and how to do it.
Do not forget about the search
You've probably experienced it yourself: You tap into a page, and maneuver straight to the internal search bar. Optimistically, you enter the keywords -- and only get irrelevant hits back. Or maybe you get no results at all.
This is terribly annoying. Nevertheless, it is all too common to neglect the work of ensuring good internal searches,” Henrik says.
Increasingly high expectations for search
The developer explains that Google has made us well accustomed. Many of us have Googled our whole lives, and have high expectations for searches.
“More and more users go straight to the search function when they enter a page. They may be looking for a specific thing, brand or product. Some online stores have bet hard on this, and it is well felt. But most lag behind, he says.
The problem, of course, is that when the search doesn't conjure up what the user is looking for, they assume the product doesn't exist.
But maybe it's there, it's just called something else. In other words, a bad search function is simply bad for business. You risk frustrating users and losing customers completely unnecessarily,” he explains.
1. Do an analysis
So how can you make sure to give users the hits they are looking for? The very first thing you should start with is to make a keyword analysis. What exactly are people searching for — both through Google and in their internal searches?
“Then you can find out, for example, if people get a lot of zero hits, and zero hits are valuable. If a lot of people apply for “study plan”, and don't get anything up, that's useful information. Maybe you have a page called “schedule,” and then you know you need to take action,” he says, adding a bonus tip:
You should also think about analytics as leading to how your website looks. If it's something that a lot of people are searching for, maybe you should rather highlight it more clearly, or place it on the front page?
2. Use keywords
Once you've done an analysis, it's time to enter keywords. It allows you to associate multiple keywords with the same match.
— Enter “study plan”, “calendar” and other keywords you see people searching for and that you know have relevant matches. You don't want to lose customers who are looking for sneakers just because they search for “sneakers” instead, Henrik tips, adding:
But make a selection. Do you have too many key word, it can give the wrong hit again.
3. Beware of indexing
You can choose for yourself what the internal search engine will index. It is hardly necessary to search among everyone words on your website.
— This also avoids the same content being indexed multiple times, such as if you have matching text in an article and on an info page. Be aware that H1 tags have higher weightings, and you can also give higher weighting to title tags, he says, adding:
“Another advantage of this is that you commit yourself to structuring the entire website in an SEO-friendly way. In other words, it will pay off in organic traffic as well,” he says. Read more about how we work SEO optimization of websites here.
4. Hold some hits back
Even if there are many relevant matches on a search, you should not show them all at once. It can quickly become overwhelming.
— If you show everything relevant at the same time, the user may quickly think that this was pointless. Put the most relevant things at the top and have a “Load More” or “Go to Search Result” button. If you have the option to filter, it's great.
5. Check out smart opportunities
You can go a long way with the very basic functions — maybe you don't need any hocus pocus. But if you take this seriously, there are several exciting technologies out there.
One option is Elasticsearch. This indexes the content for you, categorizes everything and gives it a score. And then you have services like Loop54, which is predictive. We recently implemented this at Braasport. This service learns from previous searches, and gives you results it thinks you'll like. For example, if you applied to Adidas, and later searched for shoes, it will guess that you are most interested in Adidas shoes, he explains.
6. Do not forget about the maintenance
Have you done all these things, you can pat yourself on the shoulder. At least for a little while. Because remember that as content goes out of date, and the website fills with more and more “bloat,” you need to update your searches accordingly.
Every now and then you should do a proper cleaning job. Mark things that should not be indexed, delete old pages and information that has become irrelevant, he says, concluding:
Remember, a good search is never finished.
