Last week, Google accounted for 90.78% of web searches in the UK. So why is the Big G so popular?
Well, most of us think it gives us relevant results when we do a web search. And it’s quick – press ‘search’ and off you go. No waiting around for top quality results.
But what else does Google do that works well? And what features can you take from Google search to improve your website’s internal search?
1. Tell users what to search for
Some of your users will stumble on your search pages because they won’t really know what they’re looking for. Or they might not know the name of the product or page they want.
Help them out by offering recommended searches, like the most popular search terms or quick links to products you are promoting.
2. Add categories
Google lets you search the web, or search by category. For example, images, videos, books, products or news.
Do the same on your internal search and let users ‘search by’ particular categories or products.
For example, if your site sells used cars, allow users to search by price range, engine size or insurance group.
3. Help users refine their search
This is similar to recommended searches and categories, but is something you can offer after a user has completed a search.
If I search ‘SEO’ on Google.co.uk, I get around 193 million web pages in my results. But Google then allows me to refine my search by things like publish date, page type (reviews and forums), and related ‘longer-tail’ queries like ‘SEO blog’.
Do this on your own internal search. For example, an online second-hand book store might allow a user who searches for ‘George Orwell’ to refine their search by year published or price, or suggest a longer-tail search query such as ‘George Orwell Animal Farm’ to help narrow results.
4. Promote your best pages
If I do a search for ‘mail’ on Google, I get a ‘sponsored link’ for Google Mail with my organic search results.
Google use their own Adwords a lot to promote their services like this, even if they feature prominently in the organic search results.
You can use this tactic on your own internal search by using ‘recommended links’ with search results. Then you can push users to pages and products you want to promote.
Recommended links are also good for users who might use variations on common phrases and then get few or no results. For example, if they search for ‘H151 jab’ and the page with the information they are likely to want is called ‘information about the swine flu vaccination’.
To help you get started on your recommended links, go through your search logs to look for the search terms that users search for on your site. This can also help you identify content gaps in your site’s content.
Tom Hallett
Campaign Delivery Manager
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