SEO and then what?
Just try a search in Google for something on a search engine (perhaps with the addition of optimising) and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is all you get as results…it is very hard to find anything about optimising your own search engine although it is one of the most important function of a website….on article I like was (in dutch):
http://www.webanalisten.nl/analyse/bezoekers/investeren-in-zoeken-zinvol.html.
My guess is that SEO mainly only focus on getting higher ranking in Google and do this by optimising the content of the website, the link structure and most important: incoming links (this is not a SEO article so I’ll leave other more detailled options).
But what happens when you got that visitor, that lead from Google? Well…just picture what you do yourself. You judge the page you see and match it on the keywords you used in Google. If that is ok, you probably didn’t reach the exact page you are looking for (you don’t even know the site and have no idea wether this site contains the page/product you are looking for)….so what do you do? Two options: scan the naviation of hit the search function.
The search function is used the most (studies mention 50%+ )…mainly because the navigation just need to use the same words/terms you expect and almost never do.
So we’ve reached the internal search engine. In most cases a fulltext search function on the underlying database. Is this sufficient? For a very small website: yes….small meaning <50 pages in total. Is the site any bigger..no way. What about the ’special’ search options in webshops? Well, in most cases you get a category filter and that’s it. Still, search for any term and you’ll get hundreds of results….want to browse through all of them? Don’t think so and you’re off to another website.
What is the webshop manager to do? Well, check what you have looked for, check what result you saw and manage the results. Add synonyms, alter search terms for terms the shop uses, ignore some terms…is that enough? Uhm….nope. What about what other visitors did? Look at the big picture….Amazon was one of the first to use statistical information and showed visitors what other bought. You can use these ideas in search as well. Look for a search engine which helps you with this.
So, some pointers:
1) check what searches your visitors do (not in Google, but in you own engine) and make sure the content matches this
2) manage the keywords your visitors use and alter the query if needed
3) split product content with text pages in search with a searchfilter of in your resultset
4) make sure your best converting products top your resultsets
5) let important pages/products rank higher
6) show high marging or interesting promotions at the top of the results (not all, but keyword based).
Good luck…need any help. Let me know and I’ll have look if you want.