Visit Us at Booth 410 at the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Ed in Las Vegas on Nov 10-13 | SCHEDULE A DEMO
Mar. 18, 2021
Tom Humbarger
|
The case for better site search is an issue facing all companies today as the amount of online content explodes and people are spending increasing amounts of time on websites, especially during the COVID pandemic. With content on websites and in knowledge bases growing exponentially, the importance of making it easier for users to quickly find what they are looking for makes getting search right really important.
Compounding the growing importance of search is that users also have high expectations for search. Over the last 20 years, Google Search has become an important part of how people experience the Internet and it has raised the expectations for all users. Users expect a fast, relevant and flexible “Google-like” search experience on every website they visit and want a search experience tailored to their unique needs and desires.
Think critically about your own recent experiences with site search:
These are the questions that are driving the conversation for getting to better site search.
Better search impacts all aspects of a business, including:
During the last year, we have talked to a number of companies about their site search experience and have repeatedly heard these common themes:
One of the loudest concerns we hear is that the out-of-the-box search for many content management solutions are rudimentary and don’t provide any advanced features. This means that companies end up with sub-optimal search experiences or spend a lot of time and money customizing the search experience using consultants or developers.
Layered on the previous concern is the fact that many business teams don’t have any access to search metrics or tools to interpret what’s happening with search on their sites. For example, most companies don’t know how many searches are performed on their site, what the most popular search terms are, what content is being clicked on and what searches don’t return any results. Understanding these insights is critical to providing a better search experience.
Another big issue is that business teams cannot update the search experience without using developers. The ability to configure search, add synonyms, spell check and auto-suggest terms, set parameters, boost fields, elevate content or make even minor changes is not possible without filing a support ticket and getting in the development queue. The business teams know what they need but are hamstrung by these IT bottlenecks.
Companies want to see value on their investment quickly and don’t have the patience for long or costly implementation projects. They want to realize near-immediate value and need a quick payback from their investment.
Most site search solutions are too expensive in terms of software fees, consulting overhead to customize the solution or both.
When you add all of these issues together, you end up with a site search experience that is not addressing the needs of customers or business users.
For all but the largest and most sophisticated organizations, the recipe for better search is pretty simple – give marketing teams the tools they need to analyze and control the search experience without getting slowed down by IT bottlenecks.
Common high level features you should look for in a site search solution include:
Companies are looking to get up and running quickly, and do not have an appetite for a long or expensive integration process. The solution should have integration models or accelerators to minimize integration and let business users begin to improve the search experience within days and not weeks.
Business users should be able to configure most of the search parameters without involving developers. Tasks like adding search synonyms and stop words, updating spell check, adding hitlighting and configuring the search results.
Business users are looking for a dashboard with a summary of key statistics such as total sessions, total searches, searches with clicks, most popular searches and searches with no results. They want information about what content items were accessed for each of the top search terms and what search terms are driving the top content items.
Business users want to make search results more relevant by boosting the importance of certain fields to improve the search results. They will also want trigger-based rules which can take dynamic action such as field boosting, replacing terms and selective filtering. And they will want to be able to curate or shape the search results by selecting or promoting specific content to the top of the search results.
Finally, the solution should be able to gather feedback on the experience from users so there is a 360-degree feedback loop for continuous improvement.
SearchStax Site Search is a game changer that makes it quicker, easier and less expensive for companies to deliver relevant and personalized site search experiences websites. Contact us today for a quick discussion and demonstration to see how it can help improve your search experience.
The Stack is delivered bi-monthly with industry trends, insights, products and more
Copyrights © SearchStax Inc.2014-2024. All Rights Reserved.
SearchStax Site Search solution is engineered to give marketers the agility they need to optimize site search outcomes. Get full visibility into search analytics and make real-time changes with one click.
close
SearchStax Managed Search service automates, manages and scales hosted Solr infrastructure in public or private clouds. Free up developers for value-added tasks and reduce costs with fewer incidents.
close
close