Internal Site Search and SEO

Interacting with a well-tuned site search functionality is akin to dealing with an experienced and passionate store concierge, prompt and intelligent in response, offering you relevant and actionable replies to your queries.

Unfortunately, the search experience offered by most sites typifies dealing with an underpaid staffer who sits disinterestedly behind the desk and gives a curt response of “over there” when engaged.

However, with regular and proper site search optimization practices, you can turn a lousy search experience from being an inefficient staffer who helps drive customers away into an engaging salesperson who helps convert visitors into customers.

Let’s explore the world of Site Search SEO.  

What is SEO?

“Search engine optimization”, or SEO, is a two-sided coin that helps drive users to your site organically through web search services like Google and also helps your site search guide users to find what they need once they’ve arrived on your site.

SEO, in simple terms, refers to the process of improving your site content to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in search engines. The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you will garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business.

Internal Site Search and SEO

What effect does SEO have on your site search, and can your internal site search affect SEO?

There is an almost symbiotic relationship between site search on internal search engine for your website and SEO. Search engine optimization helps provide a positive site search experience that provides users with relevant search results, while analytics gleaned from Site Search help guide and inform SEO strategy.

Is Site Search Good for SEO?

Modern SEO is the practice of creating high-quality, relevant, and timely web content to help increase the audience of your website. However, if not approached with care and foresight, this can have a somewhat paradoxical effect.

As your site increases its content, you’ll begin to see an increase in organic visitors via search sites like Google; the downside is that the increased content also means it becomes more challenging for visitors to locate what they want, which can lead to a higher bounce rate.

A good site search experience can negate this friction by helping users quickly sift through the site’s content while providing site owners with valuable and actionable user data that can help guide and inform SEO strategy.

Site Search Data and Improving SEO Strategy

We all know Google is the king of search. It has an incredible influence on SEO because it’s the first place we go to find information. Our site search data will tell you what people are looking for when they visit your site, and that information can help improve your SEO strategy.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is about making sure people see and click the content you want them to see. The better keywords you have in your content, the more often they will show up in searches.

This doesn’t mean you should blindly optimize every page on your site without thinking about what makes sense for that page; instead, take a strategic approach to site search optimization by understanding how people behave on each page of your website. That way, you’ll be able to provide them with precisely what they’re looking for!  

Here’s a look at some notable Site search data that can help drive SEO.

Keywords

Keywords provide you with an insight into the major topics that your customers find important. They are insightful as they can highlight the different ways customers describe similar things. Your site visitors most likely are using these very same words on web search engines. Analyzing internal search data can help companies identify and implement new keywords to prioritize SEO campaigns.

Conversions

Whether a conversion is recognized as a sale, an item added to a cart, time spent on a piece of content, or a subscription, tracking conversion is an excellent way to understand which queries perform better than others. It helps you recognize what products your customer is most interested in or finds valuable. For example, if you find a query with a low click position but a high conversion rate, you can identify and take steps to better highlight the item to customers.

Overall, identifying items and content with a high conversion rate is the most relevant content to your users, and this information can better inform your SEO strategy.

Queries

Analyzing the information or queries users type into the search bar is by far one of the best ways to understand what users are looking for on your website. It helps you identify the content, topics, and products that are in demand. By leveraging this information, you can take strategic steps, such as pinning popular results on the homepage, boosting popular items to the top of the search results, or expanding lacking content areas.

Click-Through Rate

The click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio of users who clicked on a search result to the total number of users who viewed search results. You can use this rate to determine whether people have found interesting and relevant content in their search. It is also an essential measure of how engaged users are on your site.

Low CTRs indicate where your content is lacking, and users didn’t find what they were looking for. Higher click-through rates show where your search performs well and that the results offered are relevant.

If your CTR is low, it indicates that you may need to fine-tune your content and provide users with more relevant search results.

Zero Results Pages

Keywords without results can indicate different scenarios. First, your visitor might have misspelt the keyword or used a synonym that your search currently does not support. This can help you identify and include correct and incorrect (typo) queries in your site search to avoid zero-result pages.

Another reason for a zero results page can be that you do not offer any content around that keyword. Your site search indicates what users are looking for, so it makes sense to either adjust your content accordingly or create a custom zero results page that can forward your client to alternate popular products or content.

Customer Exits

Whenever a user leaves your website without converting, it might signify that they did not find what they were looking for or were disappointed with what they saw. Customer exits are one of the metrics that can give you a clear idea of where your clients are unsatisfied and where your website has a bottleneck.

Site Search Usability and SEO

Websites with a good user experience and equally good performance are more likely to rank higher on search engines like Google. The site search feature on your website and its usability directly correlate to how satisfying the overall user experience is and how engaged your visitors will be in the site’s content.

To provide the best user experience and get the most out of your site search, it is essential to understand how to optimize your site search engagement.

When implemented right, organisations can create an improved user experience that increases customer satisfaction and drive SEO goals.

Summing it up

AddSearch helps businesses increase their conversion rates and site visitors with the best site search experience. Talk to our team and see why G2 ranks AddSearch as providing the highest ROI in the industry.