If you have installed Google Analytics or any other analytics program on your website recently, you’ve probably noticed how impatient your visitors really are. If they can’t find what they are looking for, they click off to another website where what they want may be easier to find.
How do you help your visitors find what they want quickly? Try a global search bar.
Search bars aren’t just for search engines. They are relatively easy to install (depending on how your website is built) and not only help your visitors find what they are looking for, but they also give you a great insight into why people are coming to your website.
You can track the terms visitors put into your search bar in most analytic programs. That will show you the exact words and terms that visitors use. It is critical that your website design speak the language of our visitors. Maybe your copy and your navigation are built around generic terms, but your visitors are using very specific terms. That’s a powerful insight to use in tweaking your website.
Plus, if you have set up your analytics properly, you’ll be able to see how visitors using each term use your website and how many of them convert to your desired action — whether it is to purchase a product or fill out a contact us form. If a term is generating a good volume of traffic, but that traffic is not converting, it may indicate that the content is too deep in your structure or not surrounded by copy that is compelling enough.
There are several search bars out there that are free, can be installed easily, and do not require advertising to be displayed along with the results. At SGG, we don’t incorporate search bars in our website designs that allow the visitor to search the web at the same time, because that can take the user away from the website and that is counter to what an effective website does.