What is an on-site search?
As the name suggests, on-site search—which is also called internal search or site search—is a form of search that is only concerned with the contents of the website it is in as opposed to all available websites on the internet.
If you want a more in-depth understanding of this topic, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: What are the benefits of having it?
The biggest benefits of having on-site search are as follows:
- Improved user experience – having on-site search on your website makes it so much easier for visitors to find what they are looking for and get to where they want to go.
- Lower bounce rate – By helping your visitors easily find what they need on your website, you effectively eliminate the risk of them getting frustrated and just leaving.
- Increased conversion rate – The more frictionless the path to conversion is, the more visitors you will be able to convert—and giving your visitors the power to search for what they want and go directly to it instead of wasting time going through each and every page on your website removes a whole lot of friction.
- Better SEO – There is a big chance that the keywords your visitors use on your website is the same as (or extremely similar to) those they use in Google search. This gives you an idea of what keywords you should try to rank for.
Question #2: Can it save a poorly structured website?
No, on-site search cannot save a poorly structured website. While it might help improve the overall user experience to a certain extent, there is just no way it can completely solve the problem.
The goal, then, is to make the structure of your website as simple and intuitive as possible for your target users first and then use on-site search to make the overall user experience even better.
Keep in mind that if your website is confusing, there is a big chance that it would instantly turn off a lot of your visitors, causing them to leave before they even realise you have an on-site search in place.
Question #3: Do I need on-site search?
While on-site search is indeed helpful, not all websites need to have one in place. To find out if you do, you need to answer five simple questions:
- Does my website have a lot of pages? The more pages your website has, the more challenging it becomes for visitors to find what they need.
- Does my website have a blog or news section? If it does, then you are most likely always uploading new content, which, in turn, makes it more challenging for visitors to find the content they want.
- Does my website function as an online catalog? If it does, then it presents visitors with a lot of different items under different categories, which makes it more challenging for them to find the exact items they are looking for.
- Does my website function as an online database? If it does, then it presents visitors with huge volumes of data, which makes it more challenging for them to find the exact data they need.
- Is my website a social media platform? If it is, then you will need to provide your users with a way to search for people to connect with and posts to engage with.
If you answered yes to any (or all) of these questions, then you definitely need on-site search.
Question #4: How can I make my on-site search more effective?
To make your on-site search more effective, you need to:
- Make it visible. After all, if your visitors are unable to locate it, then what is the point?
- Add auto-complete. Not only will it make the process of searching for things easier, it might even encourage visitors to explore content that they were not originally planning to check out.
- Add auto-correct. Do not penalise visitors for making typographical errors or incorrect search terms. Instead, configure your on-site search to make sense of incorrect inputs and figure out what they mean.
- Optimise for keywords your customers use, not industry jargon. At the end of the day, it is your customers who will use your on-site search, not industry experts.
Eliminate dead ends. If you do not have what the user is looking for, do not just tell them that. Instead, suggest something similar.
For more on on-site search, check this article from Search Engine Journal.