Knowing what people search for on your site is very, very interesting.

After all, these people are already on your website. And they’re probably using your search feature because they can’t immediately find what they’re looking for. At least, that’s what we usually notice during user tests.

What do you have to do?

1. Make sure you can analyse the search queries on your website
   Earlier, we talked about how to hook up your own site search to Google Analytics.
   Of course there are other tools out there, but they’re often expensive and quite frankly not as good.
2. Analyse the list of most frequently used search words a couple of times per year
   Take into account spelling and wording variations and group these together. People looking for a ‘gun license’, ‘handgun license’ and ‘gun permit’ are all looking for the same thing. The filters in Google Analytics come in quite handy here.

Typical discoveries when analysing a search feature

• People look for things that appear to be hard to find through the navigation structure
• They look for things that aren’t on your website
• They type in old product names and even your competitors’ product names
• They don’t use the same words you do
• People can’t spell very well… at all

How can you turn that knowledge into a profit?

• Improve the structure of your website and your overview pages
  Bring the top tasks to the fore in your structure or draw attention to them by giving them a prominent place on the homepage and overview pages (also called landing pages, index pages or category pages).
  Rewrite your content where necessary. Make sure you create pages that are easily scannable.
  That way you improve your information architecture and overall website usability.
• Expand your content
  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should start churning out random content. Far from it. But, after you’ve deleted all the content people aren’t interested in (and there will be loads of it, trust me), you should think about creating content people áre looking for but that you’re not offering yet.
• Connect discontinued products to similar new products
  Don’t disappoint people who type in names of discontinued products or old product names. Tell them which current products correspond to those older products they already know and apparently still want.
  Do the same if people type in your competitors’ product names or product codes. People who do that are most likely not looking for that exact product but just something similar.
• Use the same words as your users or make your search feature smarter
  If your visitors don’t use the same words your website does, you’re the one who needs to change. Or at least expand your vocabulary. You can also make your search feature smarter by hooking it up to a thesaurus with synonyms.
• Take common spelling errors into account
  Depending on your search software (and your budget) you can automatically correct spelling errors or suggest alternatives.
  If you can’t afford to do that, and it turns out 1 out of 4 people use the same miss-spelling for a particular word, put that spelling error in the meta-data of the most relevant page, or use the wrong spelling on the page somewhere.

Examples

• Gun permit on government site
  On a government site, we noticed that ‘gun permit’ (and all its variants) was continually in the top 5 searches. Because guns aren’t exactly a popular topic, it wasn’t deemed very important and was put on the 3rd level of the structure somewhere. But it’s apparently one of the site’s top tasks.

• E-commerce site with unclear delivery information
  Almost the entire top 5 searches on this e-commerce site consisted of things like delivery options, shipping costs, payment methods etc. A clear indication these things needed to be clearer and not just tucked away under a link ‘Terms of sale’.
• Old product names and competitors’ product codes at a cable manufacturer’s site
  On the site of a leading cable manufacturer we noticed large volumes of searches on product codes and product names. Makes sense, right. But when we probed a little deeper, we noticed that a lot of the searches weren’t producing any results. Delving deeper still, it appeared that the product names were old names the cable cmpany didn’t use anymore but apparently the customers still did.
  User research taught us those people weren’t looking for support for the old products, they were simply looking for a replacement. They wanted to re-order the product.
  The solution: tell customers the old product name or code doesn’t exist anymore and show them the new products with similar characteristics.
  The result: an increase in sales.

You might also like:

• How to hook up your own site search to Google Analytics
• Navigation versus search
• Search results: layout tips
• Search = type-in field+ button

• What people use your search feature for says something about your navigation, homepage and overview pages. If those are all perfectly fine, chances are that very few people will use your search feature.
• Insight into what people are searching for on your website. Which words do they use? Do they use other words than the ones you’re using? Are there typical spelling errors lots of visitors make? Are they looking for things that aren’t on your website? Etc.

3 ways to analyse your site search data

1. Your content management system or search software has a built-in tool to analyse the search feature. In that case, you are very lucky. Unless of course it’s a crappy tool.
2. You’re best buds with the IT crowd and they’re more than happy to make you a tool to analyse your search data.
3. You use Google Analytics to analyse your website’s visitor behaviour. If that’s the case, do read on. (If you don’t have Google Analytics yet: make sure you do.)

Can you ‘hook up’ your search feature to Google Analytics?

• Enter a search query on your website, for example using the word ‘test’.
• Check whether the url of the search results page scontains your search query. (As shown in the examples below.)
• If it doesn’t, you’re in trouble. Go visit your friends at IT or call your web builder to fix this. That shouldn’t be very hard.

How do you hook up your search feature to Google Analytics?

1. Log in to your Google Analytics account and click on the name of the site of which you want to hook up the search feature. (This step is only necessary if you have more than one website.)
   
2. Click on the link ‘Edit’ on the right side of the page.
   
3. You’re now on the page ‘Profile settings’. Click the link ‘Edit’, in the top right corner of the block called ‘Main Website Profile Information’.
   
4. At the bottom of the page there’s a subheader ‘Site search’. Select the radio button ‘Do Track Site Search’.
   
5. More options will then appear. In the ‘Query Parameter’ field, you need to type in the parameter that’s directly in front of the search query in the url of your search results page. In the example of The Web Usability Blog that’s the letter ‘s’. In the example of Flemish Brabant it’s the letter ‘q’.
   
6. Unless you use faceted search, you’re done.
7. Don’t forget to save your new settings.

How can you check if it works?

• Click on ‘View reports’ in Google Analytics. There’s a navigation on the left now where you click on ‘Content’. After that, click on ‘Site Search’.
• If you see numbers and graphs, you’ve succeeded.
• If you don’t, read the instructions again…

What can you do now you’ve hooked up your search feature to Google Analytics?

If you know what people search for on your site, you can turn that knowledge into a profit. Read all about in our article ‘Analyse your site search to increase ROI‘.

And the advanced search feature on Iha.com doesn’t make it any easier.

Then again, maybe it’s handy if you’re looking for a lakeside cottage in the mountains with a private swimming pool and sauna. Around the corner from an 18 hole golf course.

Maybe.

A client recently asked me: “Navigation, isn’t that a bit old hat? I mean, this is the time of Google. Doesn’t everybody just search?”

No, they don’t. Good navigation and good links are vital for the success of a website. A search feature is an added bonus, sure. But if you have one, it has to be as good as Google or even better.

Less than 5% uses the search feature

Google might be insanely popular but that doesn’t mean the search feature on your website is too.

On the contrary.

When we do visitor behaviour analysis (read: Google Analytics) we often see that the search feature is rarely used by more than 5% of a site’s total number of visitors. On our blogs the number of searchers is even lower: around 1,5%. On the website of a Flemish province we’re working for it’s just below 5%.

Things we know about search

During user tests we see the following happen time and time again:

• Most people only use the search feature after they’ve tried the navigation or the content links. Search is seen as the last resort.
• If people are looking for something very specific, like a product they know the name of, they’re be more inclined to search.
• Programmers and engineers use the search feature more often than ‘normal people’.

What if more than 5% of your visitors uses the search feature?

If the number of visitors that use your search feature is higher than 5%, that might be an indication that all is not well on your website.

Check whether your navigation is clear to your visitors. Do they understand the words you’re using? Do your overview pages contain the right links?

It’s also worthwhile to check on which page people start searching. And to see what it is about that page that might cause them to do that.

These rules obviously don’t apply to job sites, real estate sites, etc. where people basically come to search.

5 reasons to encourage people to browse rather than search

1. Most people aren’t very good at searching
   It’s quite shocking to see how bad some people are at formulating a good search query. Often they use words that are either too general, way too specific or just plain wrong.
2. Different words
   People often use different words than the website uses. They type in ‘night school’ for example, when the site talks about ‘lifelong learning’. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it usually doesn’t deliver great results.
3. Spelling errors are very common
   You wouldn’t believe the amount of ’sandels’ and ’sandles’ being offered on eBay when actually what these people are trying to sell are ’sandals’.
4. Most search features aren’t very good
   Most search features, especially the ones that come with a CMS, aren’t very good. The way of searching the data, ordering the results, accounting for spelling mistakes, … it’s all a bit depressing.
5. People who browse see more and buy more
   People who use the search feature look at less other pages after they’ve found what they’re looking for than people who browse. On e-commerce sites the shopping carts of browsers are fuller than those of searchers.

   On the other hand, searchers often have a higher conversion rate than browsers. That’s pretty logical, given that people who use the search feature know what they want and are often looking for something specific. And so not an argument in favour of just pushing any and every visitor towards the search feature.

Which brings us to the interesting subject of hooking up your website’s search feature to your Google Analytics account. Because there’s loads of interesting information to be found there. But we’ll talk more about that later.

Meanwhile, you might want to check out these articles

• Search = type-in field + button
• Layout tips for search results

Case study presented at 2009’s SIGCHI.be conference. SIGCHI.be is the Belgian chapter of SIGCHI, the premier international society for professionals, academics and students who are interested in human-computer interaction.

What’s the presentation about?

• 3x more visitors
• What makes UiTinVlaanderen.be so much better than Cultuurweb?
• Do the community features play an important part in the site’s success? 
• How did user tests improve the search feature and results?

Usability Awards 2009: 2 times silver for UiTinVlaanderen.be

At the Usability Awards 2009 the new and improved UiTinVlaanderen.be came 2nd in the category ‘Most user-friendly government or non-profit website’. But UiTinVlaanderen.be wasn’t only a jury favourite. The site also came 2nd in the public vote.

Strong points of UiTinVlaanderen.be according to the jury

• Phenomenal amount of events
• Task-oriented homepage and main navigation
• Handy search filters
• Good integration of social media and web 2.0 features

Weak points of UiTinVlaanderen.be according to the jury

• Content and copywriting isn’t always the greatest
• Doubles of events
• The search filters could be more streamlined
• Too many events without images, making you dislike the omnipresent ’Uit’-logo

All in all, that’s not a very hard thing to do. But since I know some web builders like to get creative with search, here’s a few tips for a simple search interface.  

Who are these tips for?

99% of all web sites. Only when search is at the core of your business, like it is for jobs sites, property sites and classified ads sites, do you need a more complex search feature.

Search interface = type-in field + button

The basic rule is simple: the search interface consists of a type-in field followed by a button.

A search feature without a button looks cool to web builders and web professionals but not all ‘normal’ surfers know they can press ‘Enter’ to activate the search feature. 

Type-in field: empty and big enough

Basic rules for the type-in field:

• The type in field should be at least 25 characters long. A two-word search should be visible.
• Obviously you need to be able to use more than 25 characters in the type-in field. The number of characters you can type should be unlimited.
• Make sure the type-in field is empty. Don’t put in instructions like ‘Type your keyword here’ or ‘Search’. If your search feature looks like one, people will know what to do with it.
• Make sure people recognize it as a type-in field. Use a white or at least pale background colour and put a border around the type-in field.
• If you really want to get frivolous, use rounded edges. That’s about as creative as you can get. At least if you want a clear search interface.

Button: the clearer, the better

• The button should look like a standard button.
• Pale background colour. Grey does the trick nicely.
• Fairly square. If you really want to, you can go for rounded edges. (The excitement!)
• Put a border around the button.
• For those who think I’m too strict: do you really think sites like Google or eBay wouldn’t ‘design’ their buttons a bit more if that worked better than a standard search button?
• Put the word ‘Search’ in the button. Meaningless things like ‘Go’, an arrow or a magnifying glass are a no-go.

No need for announcements

If you stick to the rules, everybody will recognize your search feature. You won’t need to ‘announce’ the search feature by putting the word ‘Search’ in front of the type-in field. Because it already says ’Search’ on the button.

‘Enter’ activates the search

Because your web site is there for all kinds of surfers, also the more experienced ones, ‘Enter’ should start the search. 

Bye-bye, advanced search

What about advanced search? Again, unless you’re a property site, jobs site or you have thousands of products for sale, a simple type-in field and button labelled ‘Search’ will do just fine.

For the average person, using an advanced search feature is as easy as climbing Mount Everest barefoot. And blindfolded. With a 50-pound pack strapped to your back. Anyway, you get the picture.

The screenshot below is from a webbuilder’s site. Apparently somebody there thought the standard search feature was in desperate need of an update. The result? A search feature that is unusable for the average surfer.

Screenshot 1

“Ah, a link to the search feature. Or is it?”

Screenshot 2

“Oops, it’s a faulty link… No, wait a minute… What’s that little white line doing there?”

Screenshot 3

“You can type on the line. That’s unexpected. But wait a minute, where’s the ‘Search’ button? Hmm, I guess I’ll just press ‘Enter’?”  

Screenshot 4

“Yes, it is a real search feature. Hmm, quite complicated…”

Did you get it?

Did you immediately catch on to how this search feature works? If you did: congratulations. You didn’t? Not to worry. I showed it during a usability workshop to ten people, all professionally involved in the internet. None of them had a clue. None of them.

Keep search simple

A plain white type-in field of at least 25 characters long and a simple button that says ‘Search’ is something everybody recognizes and knows how to use.

Making sure the page with search results helps people find what they’re looking for fast is very important. With these tips you’ll see a dramatic drop in the number of people who leave your site on a search results page.

Leave the search box where it is

Leave the search box alone. Don’t move it and don’t put an extra search box at the top of the results page either. That only confuses people. If you put the search box in the right place to start with, it’s fine where it is.

Leave the search word(s) in the search box

Don’t remove the search words from the search box. If you leave the search words in the search box, it’s easy for people to refine their search or correct spelling mistakes.

Give clear feedback

Put a sentence at the top of each results page that says how many results there are and repeat the search word(s). Use a sentence like “Your search for x has delivered y results”. Obviously, you should also do this if there are no results.

Per result: title and description

Present the results as a bulleted lists with per result:

• Clickable page title.
• Short description of the page. This description starts on a new line en is ideally between 150 to 200 characters.

Both the page title and the description are important tools to help people find what they’re looking for fast.

At least 20 results per page

Show at least 20 results per page. Most surfers won’t click through to the second page of search results. But they will (within reason) scroll down on the first page of results. If you show 20 results instead of 10, they are twice more likely to find a result they like.

More than 20 results?

Put a clickable overview of the number of results pages at the bottom of every results page, like Google does. That way people can surf from results page 1 to 5 without having to pass by all the pages in between. Start the clickable page overview with a link ‘Previous’ (except on the first page) and end it with a link ‘Next’ (except on the last page).

Clickability

Respect the rules of clickability:

• Underline links and put them in a different, easily legible colour.
• Put visited links in a different, less bright colour than links that haven’t been clicked yet.  That makes it easy for people to see which links he has alreday clicked. Unintentionally clicking the same link twice is very frustrating.  

Cut the c**p

Don’t bore people with how many pages were searched or how many milliseconds the search took. They don’t care. Just make sure the search works as fast as possible and put the most relevant results at the top.