big book of site search tips - aviva · general site search tips 3. simple, easy-to-implement tips....

Big Book of Site Search Tips

© 2009 SLI Systems


The rise of Google and other popular search engines can be credited with the growing demand for fast and easy-to-use

site search. Our own research shows that 73% of customers will leave a site in two minutes if they can’t find what

they’re searching for. Additionally, research from MarketingSherpa1 shows that people who use site search convert at

two to three times the rate of those who don’t. A 2009 report by Forrester Research for Shop.org2 shows that retailers

rank “improving site search results pages” as the third most important area of focus in 2010; more specifically, the

Forrester report says 71% of retailers surveyed will make site search/browse results a priority in the months ahead.

1. “Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008” – by MarketingSherpa. 2. “The State Of Retailing Online 2009: Merchandising And Web Optimization” – by Forrester Research for Shop.org, July 15, 2009

How crucial is site search to a website’s success? Over the past few years, site search has become the favored method of finding products or information for most website visitors. As a result, robust site search is not only a necessary element of a website, but one that should feature prominently. Care and effort should be invested to be sure site search is designed to be user-friendly. An effective site search can provide useful data about the terms people are entering in your search box, which can be useful in other areas of your marketing – including paid search and SEO.

ContentsGeneral Site Search Tips 3Simple, easy-to-implement tips

Search Page Format & Layout Tips 6Tips to improve the site searchresults page

Refinements 12Faceted navigation tips

Relevance 15Ways to improve the relevance ofsite search results

Site Search Reporting 16Things to look for in site search data

Merchandising 17Ways to make site search more dynamic

About SLI Systems 18

PageContrary to popular perceptions, optimizing your site

search doesn’t always require a costly technology

overhaul. There are many small changes and quick fixes

that can make your site search more effective and user-

friendly. The more than 80 site search tips we’ve compiled

below are intended to help you create a satisfying search

experience for your visitors and generate increased click-

throughs and conversions. We’ve broken the tips into

several categories to make it easy for you to browse the

most useful ideas for your website.


© 2009 SLI Systems

Ensure that you have site search on your site. It’s an essential component of any user-friendly website, especially e-commerce or information-rich sites. People who

don’t go to search immediately will look for one if the navigation doesn’t supply the links they’re looking for. Web

users have become used to finding a search function on most sites they visit, so if your site does not have search,

your audience may move on to a site that does.

General Site Search TipsSimple & easy-to-implement tips

General Site Search Tips

Position the search box “above the fold,” high up on the webpage.Visitors shouldn’t need to scroll down to be able to conduct a search. Visitors to your site don’t want to search for the

search box, so keeping it above the fold makes it easy for them to spot and it’s less likely that they’ll leave the site before

embarking on a search.

Make sure your search box is large enough to contain most search phrases.Design the size of your search box to meet the needs of your site visitors. For instance, if visitors on your site use long

keywords to search, make sure the box can display the entire term so they can easily see what they typed. Short or small

search boxes make it hard to read a long search term, which will increase the likelihood that site visitors will spell it

incorrectly.

Test different positions for the search box, and note which positions generate the most search traffic. SLI Systems customer Black Forest Décor took this approach, moving its search box from the right-hand upper corner

of its site to the center. The online home décor retailer made other changes at the same time, including increasing the

size of the search box. The company found that site search revenue per customer increased 84% and the conversion rate

increased 34%.

Have a search box on every page of your site. Placing a search box on every page of your site will make it easier for visitors to find the search box and use it –

wherever they are, without having to click back to find it on the home page. Ideally the search box is in the same

location across all of your pages, so people know where to find it when they need it.

Offer a search box, not a search link. Some sites have a link to their search page rather than having

a search box on every page. Search boxes are easier to find

and use. They make it easier for people to search with fewer

clicks. The search box has become iconic, thanks to the

popularity of Google, so the presence of a box telegraphs the availability of search easily and quickly.

If you only have a link then your users need to scan the text to find the search which is unnecessarily

time consuming.


© 2009 SLI Systems

If you have the text “enter search here” in the search box, use JavaScript so that the term disappears as soon as people click in the box and begin typing. Avoid forcing the site visitor to delete the text prior to typing in their own search term – sometimes people start typing

before deleting the text and unconsciously enter jumbled letters, causing problems for the search results they’ll see.

If a visitor presses the search button without typing anything into the search box then you should do something

sensible. You should not show the search results for “enter search here”. Instead you should prompt them to enter a

search term. If you don’t do this then you will find the text in your search – “enter search here” will be one of your top

search terms.


Label your search button “Search” rather than “Go” or a similarly obscure term. This helps identify the search box and provides a clear call to action.

Allow people to search by hitting the “Enter” key so you don’t force visitors to click the “Search” button. When people are typing in the search box, their hands are on the keyboard. It’s faster for them to simply hit the “Enter”

key, rather than moving their hand to the mouse and clicking the search button.

Consider adding Auto Complete to your search box.This feature suggests possible terms when visitors start typing the first letters of a keyword. This is especially useful

for hard-to-spell searches. Auto Complete also helps site visitors save time by requiring fewer keystrokes. In addition,

spelling errors occur less frequently and spelling suggestions are required less often on sites with this technology.

The terms that are shown in the auto complete drop down should be drawn from the most popular search terms on

your site. And you should show the most popular terms first in the list.

Make sure the search box is distinctive and easy to find. Given that

site visitors expect to find their way to the search box – and given

that they may abandon your site if they can’t find the search box – it

makes sense to keep the search box prominently highlighted by itself

on a webpage. For example, in the newsletter-subscribe box you may

want to put the text [email protected], which indicates that

this box is expecting an email address, not a search term.

Don’t confuse visitors by having the search box placed near other boxes, such as newsletter-subscribe sign-up forms.


© 2009 SLI Systems

Ask your visitors for their input and feedback. Your visitors sometimes have ideas about how you can make it

easier for them to find what they’re looking for. Conduct user

testing by watching people use your site search and other

areas of your site, or survey them using tools such as SLI’s

free feedback tool.

Search all content on your site. Many sites will only search their core content (for instance, articles on a news site, or products on an ecommerce site)

but often there will be many different types of content—products, articles, blogs, videos, forums, informational pages,

comments, etc. All of this content should be accessible through search, but you can still highlight the more important

content in search results—for example, your products if you are an ecommerce site. There are a number of ways you

can present the various types of content, such as adding tabs to search results or showing different types of content

on different parts of the screen.

Consider storing recent searches and presenting these to visitors. Being able to easily redo a recent search can help people that are returning to your site. Recent searches can be stored

in a cookie and displayed anywhere on your site. It’s a simple way of providing personalization. If you do offer this

feature, add simple controls so the visitor can delete the recent searches.

Consider putting the cursor focus in the search box. There are different opinions on this, but we think that when visitors go to a webpage and the cursor is already in the

search box, it’s faster and easier to start a search. As searchers convert higher than navigators, why not automatically

take them there? Special note: if you do make this change to your site, be sure to do so only on those pages where

search is the only form on the page. Otherwise, users may end up clicking on another form before the page is fully

loaded, and when the page loads and the focus moves to the search box they receive an undesired outcome. You may

also want to add additional code to allow keyboard scrolling.

Ensure that the search results pages are generated quickly. Slow-loading pages will suffer low conversion rates. Slow-loading search results tend to send time-constrained visitors fleeing to another site. Talk to your IT team to

explore ways to increase search speed, such as ensuring that images are properly formatted and systems are running

as efficiently as possible.



© 2009 SLI Systems

Have clear and specific product and content titles in the search results. Titles should be accurate and descriptive about the content your visitors will see when they click on the results. If titles

are not accurate, your visitors may not click on a result that is otherwise relevant, or they may click on it only to find

that it didn’t contain what they were looking for.

Show the total number of results so visitors know how many are available. This helps them determine how far into the results they want to click. Additionally, if the search term yields a large

number of results it may signal to them that they need to narrow their search – or click a refinement option.

Incorporate images into search results. A picture is worth a thousand words. Showing images in results helps visitors find what they’re looking for faster and

with fewer clicks, improving the overall site experience. Images are especially useful if your products are available in

several variations, such as different colors or configurations. Images can even be helpful as a visual clue on content

type, such as an article, video, PDF, etc.

Search Page Format & Layout Tips

Search Page Format & Layout TipsTips to improve the site search results page

Don’t show URLs on the search results page. This is extra text that visitors normally don’t need to see as the URL doesn’t add anything and won’t encourage them

to click and explore further. The first part of URLs is normally the same, e.g., http://www.yoursite.com/... These are

useful in web search but aren’t needed in site search. They also take up space, which could be used to show more

search results above the fold.

Don’t show irrelevant information, such as page size, date created, or relevance indicators. This type of information will distract site visitors from their goal of finding the product or information they are looking

for. By keeping search results clear of information that’s not directly related to a visitor’s keyword search, it will allow

them to find more efficiently. For some content, the date created is relevant (such as news, or maybe blog articles),

and in this case it’s fine to show this information. Relevance indicators, typically a number from 0% to 100%,

are a measure of how relevant each result is for the search term. This is interesting for people who develop search

technology, and it may be interesting for people who deploy the search, but it is rarely interesting to the people using

the search who expect the most relevant results to be at the top of the page.

Have consistent image sizes. Search results will look cleaner, and be more readable and

easy to scan if the text is not disrupted by images of different

sizes. If search results are shown in a grid view, consistently

sized images will produce a regular pattern and a better

looking page.


© 2009 SLI Systems

Offer as many search results above the fold as possible. Site visitors generally don’t like to scroll down to read long pages of search results. They expect to find relevant results

above the fold, very high up on the page. This is another reason to make sure you only include pertinent details in the

search results so you have more space for more results.

Don’t offer too many results on the page. It’s important to show as many results as possible above the fold (as stated above), but cramming too many results

on the overall page can make it look cluttered. Also, if you have more results below the fold that visitors have to scroll

down to, it’s harder for them to easily see what items match their interests. In these cases, faceted refinement options

and pagination options work better than an overly long results page.


Show prices in the search results, if applicable. Many consumers use site search for comparing products. If prices aren’t displayed in the search results, visitors are

forced to click through to find prices, which takes more time. Pricing information is highly relevant to the purchase

process, and by including it in the search results you streamline the search experience.

Highlight items that are on sale. The search results page is a perfect opportunity to promote products to an audience, and shoppers are usually looking

for good value when they search online. Consider adding a special “on sale” logo or banner to the relevant search

results, placing sale items at the top of results, or adding the ability to refine results to see what’s on sale.

Consider showing both the full price and the sale price for items that are on sale in the search results. As noted above, online shoppers are sensitive to price – and

opportunities to save. Provide shoppers an indication of the

savings they are receiving by contrasting regular prices and sale

prices, offering them more motivation to make a purchase.

Offer “add to cart/buy now” options directly from the site search results page. Smart e-commerce companies create as few steps as possible from search to checkout. When you allow visitors to

add products to shopping carts or to go to checkout directly from search results, they’re more likely to complete the

purchase – particularly if they know exactly what they want and they see it in the results at a price they’re comfortable

with.


© 2009 SLI Systems

Show ratings and reviews in search results. Site visitors place high value on the opinions and feedback of other people who’ve shopped for similar products or

services, and showing the average rating in search results helps them better determine what they want to click on.

You should allow visitors to further refine or reorder their search results based on ratings. You should also show, in the

search results, the number of reviews that a product has.

Show video in your search results. More and more sites contain some video content. This content should easily be found in site search results and potentially

played directly from the search results page. For example, onlinegolf.co.uk found that visitors who watch video are

85% more likely to buy. When they made the videos available in their site search, video viewership doubled.


Show excerpts or sections of the description, and highlight the search term within. Showing excerpts is particularly important for publishing and other content sites. By highlighting the search term in

context of the excerpt or description, visitors can decide if the result is relevant to them. This saves them time that

might be wasted clicking through to results that don’t map back to their search query.

Make your search results page match the look and feel of the rest of the site. Search, like other areas of your website, offers an opportunity to maintain your company brand. A consistent look and

feel across your site, including the search function, helps reinforce these brand messages and the experience you’re

trying to create for your customers.


© 2009 SLI Systems

Show a breadcrumb trail. A breadcrumb trail will show the search term and any refinements

that have been made. It helps visitors understand where they’ve been

previously on the site and how they arrived at the page they’re on. It

also makes it easy for them to remove refinements and helps them

go back to a broader range of results if they choose. Breadcrumbs

take up very little space, and are a standard navigational element.

Offer grid and list view options, if applicable. A grid view is typically suitable for a product search. Depending on the size of the images you can display three, four

or five across the page, and as a result, you’re able to show many more products above the fold. In a list view, you can

provide a more in-depth description of the product along with other information such as category, shipping, ratings,

number of reviews, etc. Conduct testing on your site to determine which view generates the best return, but consider

offering your visitors the option to see results in both formats. Some people simply respond better to a list format,

whereas others might like to see things in a grid. Let your customers choose how they want to see the results, and you

may have a better likelihood of converting them.

View by list. View by grid.


Maintain the search term in the search box. By maintaining the search term in the search box it makes it easy to modify the query. Sometimes people want to add

a word or two to the original search term to see slightly different results. By leaving the term in the search box makes

it easier for them to do so.

Make search and navigation consistent across your website. The refinement, sorting, view and pagination options should be the same on search pages as on navigation pages.

Both search and navigation are used to help your visitors find the content they want on your site, and there is a good

chance they’ll use both. A great example of this is SLI customer Next. They have thousands of products in multiple

categories, and the consistent search and navigation format makes it very easy for people to refine their results and

find what they seek.

Offer the ability to see results ranked by alternate criteria. By default, SLI’s Learning Search ranks results according to what’s most popular based on what’s been clicked on

most by previous visitors. However, your visitors may want to rank results by price, date, brand, rating, alphabetical

order, or something else. You should choose the options that are most appropriate for the content on your site.

If you have an ecommerce store, consider adding stock or inventory information to your search results. Shoppers need to know if a product is available before they begin the checkout process. Online shoppers become

frustrated if they choose a product, only to discover that it is out of stock. If you include product availability in

search results, shoppers can quickly find alternate purchases if their first choice is out of stock. Additionally, if the

product is unavailable you have an opportunity to offer suggestions for similar products, which might encourage

them to purchase something else. If something is out of stock consider telling your customers when you expect it to

be available.

Consider options for how to handle out-of-stock items. There are a few different approaches:

1. Don’t show out of stock items in the search results.

2. Allow your visitors to filter the results to only see in-stock items. (This filter may be on by default so the visitors

don’t see out-of-stock items when they first arrive.)

3. Demote the out-of-stock items so they are shown lower in the search results.

Consider showing larger images when visitors mouse over a thumbnail image in the search results. This is particularly suitable for product searches. Normally on the product page there are large images that allow

visitors to see the product detail closely. However, search results pages usually display smaller thumbnail images

that are hard to see the full detail of the image. By having a large image pop up when your customers mouse over the

product listing, they can easily examine the detailed images for all the products shown on the results page without

having to click into the product page.

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© 2009 SLI Systems


Have a mobile version of your search results. The mobile version of Amazon.com is not much more than a search page. The number of people accessing the

web via mobile devices is growing. On the small window of a mobile device you don’t have much room to offer the

navigational and promotional options that you have on your normal site. A mobile search is a vital part of any mobile

site and will have fewer refinements, sorting and viewing options. In this case, it’s extremely important to offer highly

relevant results.


© 2009 SLI Systems


Consider using AJAX to display your search page. By using AJAX, you avoid the need to do a page refresh after each refinement, reordering, view change, next page or

subsequent search. A request is sent to the server in the background, and only the data that is required is sent to the

browser. This results in a faster, snappier search experience.

Show search suggestions on the search results page. These are search terms that are related to the term that has been entered and can give people additional ideas

for what to search for. We normally counsel our clients to show search suggestions at the top of the page and the

bottom of the page, and below each search result. According to our own research, about 25% of site visitors will

click on a search suggestion.

Show a search box at the bottom of the search page. If a visitor has reached the bottom of the page, they may not be finding relevant results and may want to do another

query. Having another search box at the bottom of the page means they don’t have to scroll to the top to enter a

new query.

Show related searches on your content pages. These can simply be popular search terms that are used to find the page. This produces alternative, dynamic links

on your pages, using the language of your visitors. They may also provide some SEO benefit.


© 2009 SLI Systems

Refinements

Don’t show too many refinement groups.It’s hard to say exactly how many refinement options a search result should have, but in general, you don’t want to

give visitors too many options or you risk confusing them. Try to determine the most appropriate refinements for the

search terms used on your site (your site search data will be helpful here), and run some tests to see what method

works best.

Don’t show too many refinement options when displaying them as links. Instead, show the most popular and have a “more” option to see the rest. Providing too many refinement options can

be distracting. If the site visitor is interested, a “more” option will make it quick and easy to drill down into your site

while maintaining the real estate to promote other items.

Only show refinement options that are relevant to the query. For example, if a visitor to your site has searched for “camera,” it may be useful to have refinement options for the

number of megapixels and the screen size. If someone searches for “TV,” then you may want to offer screen size and

resolution refinements.

Test the placement of refinements. Businesses provide refinements in different places on their sites, often at the top of pages or in the left navigation

pane. The bottom of the page is probably not the best position for refinement options, since visitors have to scroll

down the page to view them. Any of these options may work for you and your site visitors, but it is important to test

different positions.

Show the number of results next to individual refinement options.

In other words, where you show the available refinements,

also show the number of results from the master list that

fall under that refinement, so visitors have an idea of how

many results are available to them. A good example is SLI

customer Lighting by Gregory. They provide a good assortment

of refinements, and next to each refinement is the number of

items in that category, which further streamlines the search

experience.

RefinementsFaceted navigation tips

If you have a color refinement or products available in several colors, construct search results so that when a color is selected an image for the product is displayed in the selected color. For example, you may offer a shirt that is available in red, green and blue. The main photo for the shirt may be the red

shirt. However, if visitors select the blue color refinement you should show an image of the blue shirt. Showing an image

of the red shirt, when it is available in blue, is confusing.

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© 2009 SLI Systems

Show color refinements as a palette. Colors by their very nature are visual, so rather than showing the colors in text as a refinement option, show the actual

colors in a palette. This makes it easy to select multiple colors and it takes up less screen real estate.

Consider showing the available colors in the search result for products that are available in multiple colors. You may only have room for this in a list view format.

Consider an ‘On Sale’ refinement. This refinement is particularly useful if you have a decent number of items on sale that you want to highlight. Offer

customers the option to only see inventory on sale, ultimately providing them with more incentive to purchase.

Likewise, you can offer a ‘New Arrivals’ refinement, so people can easily only see new merchandise.

Refinements


© 2009 SLI Systems

Refinements

Consider storing some facet choices for users so they don’t have to make them each time. For example, on a shoe website, if someone selects women’s shoes and size 5, this information could be stored in a

cookie and automatically selected next time they do a search. This is implicitly remembering their preferences; you

could also let them explicitly state these preferences. If you’re not sure, try asking your customers.

Offer the ability to refine by price for a product search. Price is an important part of a buying decision. Normally price refinements are shown as a list of ranges. One nice

option to consider is a price slider, which allows you to set a bottom price and a top price easily. This is a nice

presentation option because it takes less screen real estate than a list of price ranges and it offers more flexibility than

fixed price ranges. It does, however, require more clicks.

Allow people to navigate between refinements on the same level. In other words, if a visitor clicks on a refinement but then decides they want to see a different refinement, don’t

make them click “back” to get to the original search results page first. They should be able to simply click a different

refinement option from that page and easily see a new batch of results.

Don’t show refinement options that have no results.For example, if there are no red products for a particular search, then there should be no link shown to restrict the

results to red products.

Consider having an advanced search page that allows the visitor to enter a keyword and preselect refinement options before they see results. Optionally, this can be configured as a gift finder. Consider configuring search so a visitor can only select combinations

that actually return results. For example, you offer the option to refine products by color and by category. You offer

a red iPod but no red TVs. So if visitors select the TV category, then the ability to restrict the search to red products

should no longer be available.

Avoid drop-down boxes for refinements. Drop-down boxes make it harder for people to see what refinement options are available to them, and they will be less

likely to use them. If refinements are shown as a list of links, then they can select the refinement with a single click.

However if you have a many refinements, or many options within a refinement, then showing them as links can take

up too much screen real estate. In this case, drop-down boxes could be the best available option.


© 2009 SLI Systems

Relevance

Don’t place search results in alphabetical order. While this might offer a logical way for site visitors to scan results, alphabetical ordering usually has no relation to the

relevance of the results. Sometimes it makes sense to offer this as a sort option.

Exercise control over the results that matter to your business. Manually control the results when you want something different at the top from what is returned by your search

engine. For instance, you can ‘searchandise’ results by placing sale or promotional items at the top of search results to

attract attention. A robust search solution should allow you to reorder search results as needed to promote products.

Use “landing pages” when visitors type in specific product numbers, or when there is only one result for the search term. For instance, if a customer types in an SKU or product number, they should be taken directly to the page for that

product. Another example: If a customer searches for “returns” you may want to take them straight to the page that

describes your returns policy. This streamlines the searching process for customers who know exactly what they are

looking for.

Rely on user behavior to improve the relevance of search results. By examining search data, you can learn that users who enter a given search term are likely to click on a specific

product. Your site search can rank this product at the top of search results, making the results more relevant and

therefore making it easier for all visitors to find the results they seek.

Exercise caution when using global factors – such as margin, price, and best sellers - to influence result rankings. You may be making such changes because you want to promote certain products, or highlight a sale. However, keep in

mind that you may impact the relevancy of the search results, and therefore might make it harder for a visitor to hone

in on the exact product(s) they seek. For example, you may want to promote higher margin items and put in a ranking

rule to push these to the top of the results. If done carelessly, then a search for DVD might result in a high-margin

big-screen TV (which contains the term DVD somewhere in the descriptive text) appearing at the top. It is vital to show

results that are relevant for the keyword that has been typed in.

Pay attention to no result pages. Arguably it’s better to show something that might be

relevant than nothing at all. One approach is to show results

for some of the words being searched if there are no results

for all the words entered. If you do this, you should show

a message saying something like, “There were no results

that contained all of your words, but here are some results

that contain some of your words.” Other approaches are

to show a list of the most popular search terms, or show

results for similar terms (e.g. other train sets if the search

term is “Thomas the Train” and you don’t sell Thomas the

Train items).

RelevanceWays to develop the relevance of site search results

Regularly check the top search terms on your site. They can be good indicators of new items your clients are looking for, or product lines that are performing well. For

example, SLI customer Jelly Belly used to offer only a 10-pound bulk case of its Champagne Bubbles jelly beans.

Using information gleaned from site search, the company discovered that Champagne Bubbles candy was the third

most-requested search. They decided to offer a one-pound container, and it’s now one of the company’s biggest sellers

with wedding planners.

Review site search terms for SEO and PPC campaigns. This is a great source for keyword research because it shows the language your visitors are using.

Review the searches with poor or no results. One way of defining a poor result is one that has a low clickthrough rate. These terms either relate to content that

people are searching for that you don’t have or, more often, are examples of your visitors using different language to

describe your content than you do. Both of these pieces of information are extremely valuable. If visitors are searching

for content that you don’t offer, then you know that there is demand for that content and may indicate products

that you should be stocking on your ecommerce site, or information you should be adding to your site. If visitors are

searching for products that you are not able to or don’t intend to carry, then you can address this by showing keyword-

specific banners suggesting similar products.

If your visitors are using a different language to describe your content or products, you can either start using this

language on your site (which will help with your search engine optimization as well), or you can add synonyms to your

search so your visitors will find the items they’re looking for.

Review your site search quality metrics to ensure your site search relevancy is improving over time. A good site search solution “learns” by tracking visitors’ aggregate search queries and click-throughs to deliver results

based on criteria such as popularity. This means that, over time, searchers on your site are presented with the most

relevant search results and can find what they’re looking for more quickly and easily. Improved searches result in more

satisfied customers and greater sales.

Integrate your analytics package with your site search. It shouldn’t require too much effort to make sure your analytics software is tracking search activity on your site. Your

site search provider might be able to help you with this. Being able to measure site search results – like any other

marketing activity – demonstrates the value and ROI benefit you’re getting. For example, you can track the conversion

rate for site search results pages as compared with other pages on your site, as well as the percentage of revenue

generated by site search results pages. You can also determine the average order size for site search users as compared

to those who don’t search; if your site search solution is performing well, those numbers should be higher.

Watch the keywords that are quickly gaining popularity so you’re able to continually meet increasing product demand. Again, it’s important to understand the language of your customers – and like any trend, nothing lasts forever, including

the search terms used most frequently on your site. Trends around popular terms may shift with the seasons, or with

popular songs and movies, or with the latest look sported by the Jonas Brothers. The point is, as terms gain popularity,

they signal to you that the products that go along with those terms will likely also gain popularity, so be prepared.

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© 2009 SLI Systems

Site Search Reporting

Site Search ReportingThings to look for in site search data


© 2009 SLI Systems

Merchandising

Consider overriding search results to place relevant promotional items at the top of the list. Search provides a powerful venue for showcasing products that you would like to highlight, such as sale or seasonal

items. Online shoppers pay the most attention to the first several results, or those on the first page.

Don’t present unrelated cross-sell or up-sell products at the top of the search results if they are not connected to the site visitor’s search term.Shoppers expect to see relevant results, and will distrust the value of your search function if it habitually returns

search results that are promotional and irrelevant.

Create banners relating to specific keywords.Make it obvious to the visitor that they’ve arrived at a search results page displaying the correct product category. When

customers search for a brand name or product that you may have a special sale on, you can include a keyword-driven

banner at the top of the search results page to highlight that promotion.

Use banners to promote free shipping, or shipping discounts. Site visitors are focused on buying once they’ve searched for a particular product. By placing shipping offers within

banners on search results page, you provide an additional incentive for shoppers to complete a purchase.

Use synonyms to offer more results. For instance, if a site visitor searches for iPods, and your site offers other MP3 players, connect these and other similar

items so that they appear together in search results. This provides shoppers with more alternatives, encouraging them

to browse similar products.

Create landing pages relating to specific keywordsFor some popular search terms you may want to show users a dedicated landing page associated with that word, rather

than the regular search results page. For example if someone types in a brand name you may already have a page

dedicated to that brand that may be a great page to send them to instead of the search results page. We recommend

examining the search results pages for your most popular searches and consider whether you can provide a better

experience by have a dedicated landing page instead.

MerchandisingWays to make site search more dynamic


© 2009 SLI Systems

About SLI SystemsSLI Systems is the developer of learning-based search and navigation technology for corporate Internet

sites, e-commerce destinations and consumer Internet portals that Searches, Learns and Improves the

user experience. SLI Systems’ hosted site search and user-generated SEO solutions empower businesses

to enhance customer satisfaction while increasing sales, reducing costs and yielding valuable customer

information. Unlike traditional search software, SLI Systems’ patented technology continuously “learns”

from the behaviour of visitors over time to deliver more relevant results. SLI Systems is a privately held

company, with offices in Silicon Valley, London, and Christchurch, New Zealand. For more information,

visit www.sli-systems.com, or see the company’s blog at http://blog.sli-systems.com.

SITE SEARCH THAT LEARNS • MERCHANDISING • USER-GENERATED SEO

SLI Systems LtdSecond Floor

65 Leonard Street

London, EC2A 4QS

United Kingdom

UK Free Phone: 0800-032-4783

S.L.I. Systems, Inc.20370 Town Center Lane

Suite 208

Cupertino, CA 95014

USA

US Toll Free: 866-240-2812

S.L.I. Systems, Inc.Level 10, BNZ Building

129 Hereford Street

Christchurch 8011

New Zealand

NZ Free Phone: 0800-754-797

Australia Phone:1800-139-190

www.sli-systems.com • [email protected]

About SLI Sytems

SITE SEARCH THAT LEARNS • MERCHANDISING • USER-GENERATED SEO

www.sli-systems.com • [email protected]

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