Why Search is the Most Underutilized Tool On Your Site

Transcription

1 February 26, 2015 HOW SEARCH IMPACTS YOUR BUSINESS GOALS Why Search is the Most Underutilized Tool On Your Site

2 DON T NEGLECT YOUR AUDIENCE TYPES OF WEB USERS Browsers Sorters Searchers 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 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 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 2/26/2015 2

3 Searchers Browsers Sorters 2/26/2015 3

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5 1 UNDERSTANDIN G SEARCH USAGE

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7 DOES ANYONE NOTICE CORPORATE SEARCH INITIATIVES 2/26/2015 7

8 UNDERSTANDING SEARCH BEHAVIOR WHERE DO VISITORS SEARCH? 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 2/26/2015 8

9 2 ADAPT & OVERCOME HOW TO OPTIMIZE THE SEARCH EXPERIENCE

10 ADAPT & OVERCOME WHERE TO START 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 2/26/

11 WHAT ARE PEOPLE SEARCHING ADAPT & OVERCOME FOR? 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 2/26/

12 ADAPT & OVERCOME DEEP DIVE 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 2/26/

13 ADAPT & OVERCOME MEASURE! 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 2/26/

14 ADAPT & OVERCOME TESTING 2/26/

15 3 FEATURES TO LOOK FOR

16 FEATURES TO LOOK FOR TOOLS FOR SUCCESS 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 Search Box Features: Synonyms Word Stemming Auto suggest Prefix Queries (partial part numbers) 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 2/26/

17 4 MONETIZE YOUR RESULTS

18 MONETIZE YOUR RESULTS TIPS FOR HIGHER ENGAGEMENT 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 2/26/

19 THANK YOU! Q U E S T I O N S? C O N T A C T Y O U R A C C O U N T M A N A G E R O R E M A I L : S T R A T E G Y I N F A M E R I C A N E A G L E. C O M # A E W E B F O R U M

20 H O W S E A R C H I M P A C T S Y O U R B U S I N E S S G O A L S M I K E H A L E Y