The immediate intent is to reach a particular page that the user has in mind
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 5:49 am
There have already been posts on various blogs about best practices for implementing site search (such as: label the button 'Search' and not 'Go', search case-insensitively by default, always recommend refinements to searches which generate no results, etc. Stoney deGeyter covered a lot of the important usability aspects last year.) In this post, I'd like to suggest some different techniques you can implement to get more benefit from your site search. It is worth considering that, as with web-search, the type of queries made through on-site search can be grouped into categories of 'intent': Navigational:, either since they visited it in the past or because they assume that such a page exists.
Informational: The intent is to acquire some inf germany email list ormation assumed to be present on the site. No further interaction is predicted, except reading the contents. Transactional: The intent is to perform some web-mediated activity. The interaction constitutes the transaction defining these queries, and they are the most difficult to evaluate. (Adapted from the concise descriptions supplied by InfoVis.) With these in mind, we'll start by looking at collecting data to help you in this project.
Review Search Analytics Not a tip, but the place to start is by collecting some data about the way users search on your site. Your analytics package should include a feature to monitor the use and effect of your on-site search. Google Analytics hides this under Content -> Site Search. Follow the site search instructions to expose your search query parameters to Google, and you'll be able to view a dashboard - such as that shown below from Mixcloud - showing metrics such as the percentage of visitors making refinements to their initial search, the average time spent on the site after searching and the percentage of searchers who left the site after seeing the search results.
Informational: The intent is to acquire some inf germany email list ormation assumed to be present on the site. No further interaction is predicted, except reading the contents. Transactional: The intent is to perform some web-mediated activity. The interaction constitutes the transaction defining these queries, and they are the most difficult to evaluate. (Adapted from the concise descriptions supplied by InfoVis.) With these in mind, we'll start by looking at collecting data to help you in this project.
Review Search Analytics Not a tip, but the place to start is by collecting some data about the way users search on your site. Your analytics package should include a feature to monitor the use and effect of your on-site search. Google Analytics hides this under Content -> Site Search. Follow the site search instructions to expose your search query parameters to Google, and you'll be able to view a dashboard - such as that shown below from Mixcloud - showing metrics such as the percentage of visitors making refinements to their initial search, the average time spent on the site after searching and the percentage of searchers who left the site after seeing the search results.