Focus on site search
Posted by Prevyn Jeftha on 25 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: SEO Strategy, Search Engine News
Visiting a website for the first time is an exciting experience, what with all the expectations about what it might look like and what it might offer you as a consumer or potential client. Sadly, many sites do not live up to these expectations, by offering below standard front-ends and not investing enough time or effort in making the site more user-friendly.
Most of us, when landing on a particular site, tend to give the site a once-over and if what we are searching for is relatively easy to find, then we are happy. However most of the time we are sadly disappointed when the landing page does not contain the information that we were looking for. We might spend a few extra seconds trying to look around the site for more information, but usually we just leave to try the next link in the search engine results page (SERPs) and hope that the information there will be more readily available.
By having site search functionality built into your site, you will allow the user to search within the site for whatever they need. This will keep them on your site for a while longer and also possibly turn the click into a conversion. If your site visitors don`t quickly find what they are looking for, a site search tool is the perfect way for them to navigate to where they want to be.
B2B businesses are the worst of a bad bunch when it comes to finding information on a particular subject, due to the lack of natural site categories. This is probably due to the sheer volume of diverse data they hold. Many B2B site visitors instinctively use the site search tool as a shortcut to finding what they need.
Many assume that because they have a site search tool they will automatically increase their traffic and conversions. This, however, is a farce, as you will more than likely be even more disappointed at the site search results. And due to this disappointment, you might have some reservations about the site and the business it represents.
The arduous task of getting all of your content indexed by the Googlebot is even more grueling for B2B sites. Google`s rebranded custom search engine was recently relaunched as Google Site Search. For site specific searches Google Site Search offers the chance for deeper site indexing. This will help ensure that your site`s Google Site Search index reflects all your site pages. This means that visitors to your site will get different and hopefully more specific search results than when they use Google.com for finding site information.
Google Site Search also offers site owners the option to place emphasis on certain pages as opposed to all the pages. Pages with more importance, such as product pages, could be elevated above company information pages.
This is an excellent tool to help site owners and developers ensure their sites are more searchable. Users do not like to mine for information when they need it. Using this tool helps to increase site usability and friendliness, so as to encourage the user to spend slightly more time in finding the right information. Personally, I will try anything, well almost anything, twice. However, with this Google tool I may be tempted to try it a few more times.
