Three rules for site search

Last monthwe discussed briefly about how search engines interact with your Web Site. This month, we bring the topic of search closer to home—searching within your site itself.

Your site has content that you hope is valuable to your site’s visitors: articles, research, warranty, repair information, knowledge, products, services, etc. If your site has enough content you probably have some way for your visitors to look for what they need. (Even if you don’t offer the ability to search your site now, continue reading, someday you will and these rules will still apply).

The biggest tip we can offer is to consider the experience you want your visitors to have. What has brought him to this point on your site? What is he trying to accomplish?

Scenario

Imagine that you provide equipment for paving roads and someone from the Department of Transportation is looking on your site. She wants to know what mechanic training programs you offer but can’t find that topic in a cursory look at your navigation. So she turns to the search bar you’ve prominently included in your navigation and types in “machanic training.”

0 results found.

She leaves your site and visits one of your competitor’s sites. Your competitor gets the contract. You were sunk by a simple misspelling. Did you even catch it while reading this article?

Rule #1 Provide help even when no results are found

You can offer spelling suggestions. Surely you’ve seen this feature in Google. As badly as we spell sometimes, we depend on Google’s help regularly. You might also offer to send an email to customer service or provide a link to your site map. Anything really as long as the visitor feels like you are trying to help.

Scenario

You sell textiles that are used to upholster furniture. A furniture manufacturer is looking for a pattern to cover his new executive chair. He comes to your site and wants to use your product search feature to find what he is looking for. He clicks on the link for product search and he is provided with a form where he can fill out any one of 20 dropdown menus and checkboxes. He is overwhelmed with choices. (Or worse yet, he has to select a product based on the names you have given your products like Oz, Peace, Puzzle.) He knows he wants “big monochromatic circles,” but can’t seem to find anything like that in your dropdown menus.

Rule #2 Make searching easy and familiar

Always provide a box for a text search. A visitor to your site won’t always know specifics; he might only have an idea of what he wants. Let him express that idea. Sure, you might not have anything that specifically matches “big monochromatic circles,” but you do have products that match part of that query. Give him what you have, but don’t make searching so tedious or ambiguous that it isn’t worth the effort.

In truth, the effort and work should be on your end. Make your products and services easy to find by having as much information about it stored in a searchable format. Tag products with as many keywords as possible. And make sure these keywords are searchable.

Scenario

You’re a law firm. You have a large number of specializations. A visitor to your site uses the search box to try and find someone to help his company with HIPAA compliance. He searches for "privacy." Several results are returned but they all say "Some Amazing Law Firm." The links all look the same and the first few descriptions don’t even have the word “privacy” in them. He gives up.

Rule #3 Make the results clear and useful

Most of the time, the page’s title is used as the link in the search results, so make your titles descriptive. If you want the company name to be in all of the titles then do something like this: "HIPAA and Privacy Policies overview – Some Amazing Law Firm." The other point to make is that for frequently searched topics you can create your own results. Don’t just use the results that the search engine generates. If you have a page or section of your site that is a great resource, or the target page for “privacy,” make sure that page is #1 in the results list. But make sure it looks like the rest of the results. Don’t emphasize it, just put it in the #1 spot.

Your visitors may turn to your search feature because it is easier than your site’s navigation. He might be looking to see if you have a product that matches some criteria or to quickly see if you provide a specific service. He might have looked around already and been unable to find what he was looking for. In that case, your site search is his last resort before he gives up. Making your site easy will go a long way toward affecting visitors’ opinions of you. By making your content accessible, you can eliminate the frustration that comes from wandering aimlessly through your site. Always provide a positive, reassuring experience and they will learn to rely on you as the expert in your industry.