The benefits of site search analysis
A great proportion of online users report searching as their standard way of navigating a website. Despite this, Forrester reports 52% of companies do not measure search effectiveness. Jupiter states “[there has been]…little measurement or optimisation…site operators have vastly under-realised their (search) investments.”
With the right site search analysis strategy, you can:
- Discover the needs, motivations and behaviours of users by assessing what they are searching for
- Measure how well the search results lead to desired actions
- Devise techniques for optimising the search function.
Search analytics reveals shortcomings of a website which are not easily identifiable by other analytics techniques, and is equally suitable for intranets, extranets, portals and public websites.
Benefits
- Fully leverage your investment in search engine technology. Using search analytics techniques, you can configure your search engine for optimum search results. A well-functioning search engine makes content more accessible to users and helps improve their experience with your website.
- Understand what is really happening on your website. Users explicitly state what they are looking for when they conduct searches. Without needing much interpretation, their needs, motivations, and current trends can be filtered out to align closely with your website.
- Guide users to high value content. By classifying your website content with users’ choice of vocabulary, you can make most out of user interest by guiding them to high value content items.
- Prioritise development activities. Search analytics reveal your customers’ focus of interest and trends, missing and not well-classified content from your website. Equipped with this knowledge, you can prioritise your product and service development, and website enhancements.
How to do it
At Bienalto, we recommend a three-phase approach to site search analytics:
- Step 1: Review of your website. Conduct a brief review of your website to understand its purpose and target audiences as well as how the search function is integrated.
- Step 2: Analyse search log files. Using your search log files, perform a variety of analyses such as top search terms, lowest hits search terms, single term analysis, analysis of search errors, search context analysis and search analysis by user segments.
- Step 3: Report findings & determine actionable items. In a workshop environment, determine a set of action items to optimise the search function.
To be effective, search analytics should be conducted on an-ongoing basis (i.e. monthly).