make your website search a marketing machine

With: Mike Moran

Make Your Website Search

#sitesearch

A MARKETING MACHINE

Your Hosts:

Mike Moran Owner; Biznology Guest Speaker

Mike Stricker Marketing Director; SEMrush

Host

#sitesearch

Poll:

#sitesearch

Takeaways:Today you will learn:

• Why website search is so hard to do well

• How to improve the results for both popular and less-common search keywords

• How to keep score so you can be sure that you are improving

#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Mike MoranMike Moran

www.mikemoran.com

Make Your Website Searcha Marketing Machine March 17, 2015

Mike Moran

#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

What is website search?

6

We’re not talking about search marketing

#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

What is website search?

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC8

“This search engine stinks!”

▪ But a “good search engine” is not your goal. ▪ Your goal isn’t even to deliver

good results ▪ It’s to deliver the business

value of your website ▪ Search is a means to

an end

I didn’t find it and I always

find it on Google!

blanche/shutterstock.com#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Website search frequently disappoints visitors

9#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Why is site search so frustrating for customers?

▪ Google has createdsky-high expectations ▪ But website search is

actually a more difficult technical problem than web search ▪ And searchers often start out disappointed,

because they failed at navigation first

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Search is still too hard for searchers

▪ Searchers dislike typing ▪ Searchers struggle to find the right words ▪ Searchers try once, maybe twice ▪ Searchers don’t like rooting around ▪ Searchers won’t tell you what’s wrong

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

And searchers often search after navigation fails

▪ If they have already failed to find their answer through navigation, they start out cranky ▪ Searchers are often looking for harder-to-find

information ▪ Their answer might not exist on

your site

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

What’s worse, searchers think they are good at it

▪ Type just about any charactersinto Google and it works ▪ The Internet creates a content

marketplace where manyorganizations compete for thebest answer to any question ▪ Inside your organization, only one group is allowed

to answer that question, who can’t possibly cover as many bases, so the searchers walk away disappointed

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Your site doesn’t have Google’s quality clues

▪ Link analysis ▪ Social media activity ▪Web traffic

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Why do you need a good website search?

▪ “If they can’t find it, they can’t buy it” ▪ The larger your site, the more you need search ▪ Search provides free market research ▪ Good keyword suggestions for SEO ▪ Navigation is starting to depend on search

15#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

To improve, you work top down and bottom up

▪ For your most popular search terms, use the Top 40 approach

▪ For the rest of the searches, use the Long Tail Approach

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC17

Work the most popular search keywords first

▪Most search terms are unique ▪ IBM’s 1000 most

popular queries accounted for just 27% of all volume ▪ But it’s the easiest

improvement you can get

#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Determine the right answers for keywords

▪ People use many different words for the exact same problem: ! system crash

! Windows failure

! blue screen of death

! BSOD

▪ The same page can be the right answer for multiple keywords

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC19

Follow the same process for each keyword

Choose a landing page for

keywords

Audit the landing

pageno

Start

Analyze the landing page’s metrics

yes

Improve the landing page’s content

OK?next keyword

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC20

If all else fails, cheat

▪Most search engines allow “Best Bets” ▪ Be sure to maintain

all hand-crafted results

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

The biggest bottom-up change is the engine

▪ So, which one is the good one?

▪What are yourrequirements?

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

If you want a free search engine, they exist

▪ The best is probably open source Solr/Lucene ▪ You still pay to install

and host it ▪ And to tweak it ▪ But you have all the

control you could ever want ▪ There are also many other options

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC23

A single search index for each language

▪ One place to search, so no need to know where to go ▪ Relevance ranking

works best with a single index ▪ If it didn’t, we’d

all be searchingDogpile insteadof Google

#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

See what Volvo does with a “not found”

▪ It offers choices of what you might be looking for ▪ If you typed in a zip code, it seems

very smart

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC25

Get your site’s pages into the search index

▪ Push pages from your contentmanagement system OR ▪ Have a spider crawl your pages ! Remove spider traps that prevent

crawling

! Use site maps andcountry maps to create spider paths

Spider or CMS

Content Pipeline

SearchIndex

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC26

Improve your content pipeline

▪ Automated categorization ! Subject/Product ! Document Type ! Date ! Country ! Language

▪ Linguistics ! Custom dictionary or thesaurus

Spider or CMS

Content Pipeline

SearchIndex

Standardize Your Data

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC27

Use one search index per language

▪ Each language needs its own index ! English ! Spanish ! French

▪ But only one index for all content types: ! Parts ! Dealer Locator ! Content

Spider or CMS

Content Pipeline

SearchIndex

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC28

Make sure your pages contain the keywords

Use keywords in headings and titles Keywords in the early part of the page tell the search engines what your page is about. When a search engine sees keywords used frequently at the top of the page, that makes it more likely that the page is about the subjects related to those keywords. Sub-headings need keywords, too But keywords used throughout the body are also helpful. If it makes sense to emphasize your keywords by using bold, underscored, or italicized text, that gives the search engine further clues about their importance.

#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Filter search results

▪Multifaceted search uses ontologies to drill down within search results ▪ You cannot get a

“not found”

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC30

Tune your search engine

▪ Do you have the right query defaults? ! AND/OR ! country/language filters

▪ Have you tested your ranking algorithm? ! Using the right factors? Clicks?

Links? ! Using the right weights?

▪ Have you tested your facet names?

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC31

Customize your search user interface▪Make search

easy to find ▪ Use drilldown in

search results instead of advanced search ▪ Optimize what is

displayed for product and document lists

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Make entering search keywords easy

▪ Put the search box on every page ▪ Use a search box with a search button or the word

“search” ▪Make it stand out—upper right corner is good ▪Make the box large enough for the typical keywords

32#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Not every interaction leads to revenue, but…

▪My database apps are running slow ▪ Upgrade to new

version for speed ▪ Compare the right

options and pricing ▪ Purchase the upgrade

33

Learn

Buy

Shop

Use

Get

Land

…focus on the ones that do

#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

What are your key conversions?

▪ Online parts orders? ▪ Locate a dealer? ▪ Complete a contact form? ▪ Call on the phone? ▪ Your conversions drive your website search

success

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Revenue and usage show the importance of search

▪ Count the number of visitors that use search ▪ Find out how many searchers convert ▪ Calculate your search conversion rate ▪ Tally the revenue value of search

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC36

Results metrics drive your search improvement

▪ “No result” searches ▪ “No click”

searches ▪ “No conversion”

searches

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© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Use a keyword scorecard to track improvement

▪ Code the results red, yellow, and green ▪Most popular keywords ▪ Rank ▪ Result

rate ▪ CTR ▪ Bounces

37

tsi

tsi inc

tsi products

tsi returns#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

Get a 50% discount for the first six months

38

tsi

tsi inc

tsi products

tsi returns

▪ Three lucky clients—info@SoloSegment.com ▪ Everyone else gets 20% off

SoloSegment.com

#sitesearch

© 2015 Mike Moran Group LLC

What is required to improve site search?

▪ Site search isn’t just technology—it’s marketing ▪ Four major areas must be analyzed to identify

where your site search results need help

Content Technology Presentation Feedback

Content Coverage

Content Tagging

Content Quality

Site Architecture

Search Traffic

Search Success

Search Satisfaction

Search Conversions

Search Box

Best Bets

Search Results

Facets

Rank Tuning

Linguistics

Index Completeness

Search Navigation

#sitesearch

Drawing:Three lucky attendees will win:

• Keyword Scorecard—50% off a SIX MONTH license. ($15,000 value)

#sitesearch

Offers:

All attendees will have access to:

A Free 30-Day Trial of SEMrush Guru: http://bit.ly/SEMrushFREE30-Moran

#sitesearch

Poll:

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Questions?

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Next SEMrush Webinar:

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THANK YOU

Mike Moran Biznology @MikeMoran

Mike Stricker Marketing Director; SEMrush

@RadioMS

#sitesearch