Understanding how your visitors use your website's internal search function has become easier with the new Site Search reports within Google Analytics.
In this post I will specifically look at how the Site Search Usage report can be used to evaluate how your internal search function may, or may not be performing to your organization's needs.
The Usage ReportThe Usage report allows you to see the percent of website visitors using your internal search function and those who are not. If you know your search function is in need of an upgrade, and there area a high percent of visitors engaging with the internal search function, then you should consider upgrading your internal search function to better meet their needs.
If your website is already running a enterprise level search solution, like the Google Search Appliance, then this report will allow you to begin measuring the ROI (Return On Investment) of your search solution.
The Goal Conversion tab within the Usage report allows you to dive further into how your website's internal search is performing. Allowing you to see if visitors using your internal search are more likely to convert or not.
The following questions will make you think critically about your internal search:
- Can visitors find the information they require in order to convert without using the internal search?
- Where is the search box located on your website?
- Is the search box consistently located across your entire site?
- Are visitors getting the search results they expect?
- Does your internal search cope with spelling mistakes?
- Do visitors using search spend more time or view more pages on your website?
Once you have a good understanding of how your internal search is setup and used you will be able to improve its performance. The Site Search Usage report will then allow you to gauge the effectiveness of your improvements.
Labels: Google Analytics, new Google Analytics features, site search
Step 1Perform a search on your website and look at the URL.
In this example a search for 'analytics' has been performed.
This example shows a search for 'analytics', the resulting URL is http://www.example.com/search?
q=analytics. Note that the Query Parameter is 'q'.
(Please note that your website's internal search may return a much longer URL, for example http://www.example.com/search.asp?site=example&area=products&
term=analytics. Note that the Query Parameter is 'term'.)
Step 2Log into Google Analytics and click 'Edit' on next to the website profile.
Step 3Click 'Edit' for your Main Website Profile Information.
Step 4Select 'Do Track Site Search'.
Step 5Enter the Query Parameter from your internal search.
Selecting 'Yes, strip query parameters out of URL' will prevent your search from showing up in your Content reports, for example:
Selecting 'No, do not strip query parameters out of URL' will include your search results in your Content reports, for example:
Site Search also allows you to setup categories. This can be used if your internal search has the ability to segment results across different areas of your website. To setup categories you will need to know the parameter that returns results for the different areas of your website. For example if you are using a Google Mini or Google Search Appliance the Category Parameter would be 'site' on a default configuration.
If your search does not have categories do not enter a Category Parameter.
Labels: Google Analytics, new Google Analytics features, site search
Google Analytics'
new 'see searches' feature allows you to see the keywords visitors enter in your website search function.
Our company is a
Google Analytics Authorized Consultant and from my perspective as Business Director the new feature not only shows what visitors are looking for on your website but also the importance of having an internal website search function.
Being able to 'see searches' is also invaluable in checking whether the content on your website is sufficient to make it worthwhile to search. If visitors are searching your website and not finding information you want them to have then there is obviously a problem with your content which needs fixing.
We also offer organizations the option of one of the most advanced internal website search functions available, Google Mini, which indexes all content, including the content of PDFs.
You can see our Google Mini advanced search function in action on the
Clorox Commercial website.
Labels: site search
