In the first part of Onsite Search Analytics we discussed a bunch of metrics that will get you started. In the second part of Onsite Search Analytics we will go through some relevant KPI’s to consider and some best practices.

Can we derive REAL KPI’s from the metrics we’ve looked at ? Sure we can, check out these two below:

Onsite Search KPI’s

KPI: Percentage of zero result search terms

Description: This will show the percentage of all the pages that resulted in zero result for search terms that visitors submitted using your website search box. Ideally you would like to keep this value as low as you can, if that is not the case you might need to take a closer look on your search terms that visitors are using.

How to calculate: Total Number of page views for the “Zero Result Search Terms” pages / Total number of page views for the Search Result pages.

Insight: You could map all these terms that visitors are looking for to an appropriate result set.

KPI: Percentage of zero yield search terms

Description: This will show the percentage of all the pages that resulted in a result set from the server but the visitor never engaged with the result set. Ideally you would like to keep this value as low as you can, if that is not the case you might need to take a closer look into the search terms that visitors are using and the result set they are getting back from the server.

strong>How to calculate: Total number of page views for the “Zero yield search terms” pages / Total number of page views for the Search Result pages.

Insight: You might want to make the result set more relevant and appealing to the search terms.

Always keep your eyes open and learn from your competitor’s mistakes. You might be surprised but a good website search mechanism and design is where many websites fail. This is where your business could potentially shine.

Onsite Search Best Practices

Tagging search will improve your website usability and therefore provide a better experience for your visitor. Please keep in mind that all the best practices below could not have been recommended unless they were tagged to begin with!

Advanced Search

Many online businesses have the advanced search feature on their website’s. Unfortunately, not too many visitors are using that option since it usually requires some sort of technical skill to use “Search Operators”, additionally they usually encounter typos which makes your visitors even more frustrated. Just look at the bounce rate from your advanced search page and you will see this for yourself. If you don’t have to have it there, just remove it.

Search the web

Don’t offer that option on your website (unless you are getting a huge ROI as an affiliate which is not the case for most websites out there). Visitors came to your website to engage with your content, streams etc. so why are you sending them back to the web? If they are looking for something that they cannot find on your website they know how to use Google, Yahoo and MSN.

‘Best bets’ is basically a manually created list for a common queries performed on your website search engine. The whole idea behind it is to “inform” the search engine on your website that even though a specific page won’t come out or it comes up really low in the result pages returned from your server, that there are better matching results for that query. In essence, it should return more relevant results for the visitor and increase engagement with the result set. (Think SEO - it is really the same concept)

Spelling

The search feature on your website should have a spelling checker to recognise all possible common misspellings. Visitors might have misspelt a product name and since they could not find it on your site they would look for it on another site. Wouldn’t you do the same?

Modified Query

When the result set that is sent back from the server shows the original search term in the search box enabling the visitor to amend it so that they can resubmit the search. Visitors don’t like to go back and forwards to a search page as you might see from your web analytics reports.

Thats it, you are good to go and start getting insight from your Onsite search.  If you do not have the resources to do that in house, please contact us , we can help you meet your targets.