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Posts in Press Category

Goodbye SLI birth place – with explosives!

Posted by Shaun RyanAbout us, Press

On Sunday Radio Network House in Christchurch, New Zealand was demolished by implosion. Check out the video.

Our first office was located on the 6th floor this building. We moved in 11 years ago with half a floor of space and eventually occupied a whole floor before we outgrew it.

The building was damaged beyond repair in the February earthquake last year – as were most of the buildings in downtown Christchurch. It was sad to see it go – but dramatic to watch.

Site Search in the News

Posted by Terry CostaPress, Site Search

Discussions about how site search helps businesses add to the bottom line, and SLI systems itself, have been hitting the news lately. So, I thought I’d round the recent ones up for you, in case you’ve missed any.

These articles are a good read, as they present lots of useful tips and information about how to get the most from your site search, navigation, and merchandising strategies. The first article however is interesting in a different way: Shaun Ryan our CEO, and other companies talk about how they started as bootstrapped organizations with no major VC funds, which enabled them to grow to successful companies without the pressure of delivering short turn results to the detriment of long term growth.

5 entrepreneurs who chose to grow slow – Fortune.com, June 20

‘No Results’ = ‘No Reason to Stay’: 8 Ways to Improve Your Site Search – TechNewsWorld/Ecommerce Times, June 11

Retail search boxes help identify ‘customer sentiment’ – Experian QAS, June 13

Top 10 Takeaways from IRCE 2012 – SEO4Anyone Blog, June 8

10 Steps for Simple Search & Navigation – Multichannel Merchant, June 1

How to Create a Fast-Loading E-commerce Site – WebProNews, May 15

A ‘floating’ search bar boosts sales for American Bridal – Internet Retailer, May 2

Tailor Site Search To Deliver More Personal Experiences, Regardless Of Device Being Used – Retail Touchpoints, April 24

4 ways to optimize your website for Tablets – Retail Online Integration, April 4

MarketingSherpa Offers Tips for Improving your Site Search

Posted by Terry CostaeCommerce, Press, Site Search, Site Search Tips

Last week, Brian Burstein of MarketingSherpa shared some useful tips on the SherpaBlog for maximizing your site search (a few were provided by our CEO, Shaun Ryan) in his post “On-site Search: How to help your customers find what they want (to buy).” Interestingly, as Brian reports, “According to the MarketingSherpa Ecommerce Benchmark Report, customers who use the search box on ecommerce sites convert at nearly three times the rate of general browsers. Yet, 52% of marketers graded their internal search a ‘D’ or ‘F.’”

It’s staggering that so many marketers give their site search such a poor grade. Whatever the reason, Brian’s post includes a variety of solid tips that are fairly easy to implement. I recommend you check it out, and commend Brian for providing this advice to online marketers as site search is a critical yet often overlooked feature of any website. What grade do you give your own site search? If it’s anything lower than a B+ (or even if you give it an A), it’s probably time to give this feature some attention.

Get a free site review and win an iPad at our Shop.org booth (#807)

Posted by Terry CostaConferences, Press, Reviews

Come visit us at our Shop.org booth (#807), and we will give you a free site critic review. We’ll let you know how you can improve the search and navigation experience of your users, and run a few tests with you to determine how accurate your site search is. We’ll also be able to demonstrate some of the search techniques our customers use, which can be the perfect way for your etail site to capture more conversions during the holidays. While you’re there, you can enter our drawing for a new iPad.

Many retailers feel their online storefronts are all dressed up and ready to go for the holidays. If you’re not one of them – or even if you are, but you somehow didn’t include a dynamic site search in your plans – we would love to talk to you. We can discuss with you the many features and enhancements, such as Rich Auto Complete, AJAX-based site search and incorporating social media content into your site search results, that can dramatically help your site performance.

Please also check out our “Big !dea” session on Wednesday at 1:30pm, where our own Ed Hoffman will discuss the importance of understanding the language of your customers to increase sales and conversions online.

We hope to see you in Dallas!

Light Up Holiday Sales with Searchandising Techniques

Posted by geoffbeCommerce, Press, Site Search Tips

If you place banner ads and promotional notices all over your website, but skip the search results, you’re missing a lucrative showcase for your holiday marketing efforts. Many online shoppers don’t browse retail sites using navigation – their shopping expeditions start with site search. So they’ll never see your promos if they’re only placed on product pages, unless you also add them to search results.

This “searchandising” strategy should be a key part of your holiday marketing efforts. Here’s how to make the most of searchandising to promote popular and best-selling products.

  • Keyword-specific banners: Link banner ads to popular keywords so that the banners are displayed on the same page as relevant search results. This way, shoppers see your special offers or promotions at the same time they are searching for relevant products.

CNBannerBlog

  • Include promotions in search results: Encourage shoppers to click through on results by including relevant promotions right inside of search results themselves. For instance, highlight sales and discounts within results – and if makes sense, place these results at the top of the list.

FolicaBlog

  • Promote similar products: Connect the most popular search terms with similar top sellers, broadening the range of products a shopper can view. This improves the chances that customers will find the product they need, even if they haven’t entered the exact search term.
  • Cross-sell: While you have a shopper’s attention on the search results page, take the opportunity to suggest other products that they may like, in a similar vein to the product they have searched for. Your search results could include a “you might like this also” section. For example, if someone searches for flannel sheets, your search results can include flannel robes or bed pillows.

Rock On!

Posted by geoffbPress, Site Search

Today we issued a press release about Hard Rock Cafe and the work we are doing with them.

The press release explains why you need ecommerce specific features in a site search solution for a site that has both an online store and significant non-product content.

I don’t normally mention our press releases on the blog but thought Hard Rock deserved a special mention.

Rock On!

What does the future hold…

Posted by geoffbeCommerce, Press

Have you read the news today? If you have, you couldn’t ignore the many stories related to the current economic conditions and questions about what it means for business.

According to a recent story by Kevin Ryan at Search Engine Watch, everyone wants to know what the economic meltdown means for advertising and marketing dollars, and how organizations will shift spending and strategies to put the right amount of focus on the programs that promise to yield the most in terms of revenue or brand recognition.

Just this week we released the results of a survey that highlights some of the top technology tools marketers at more than 300 retail organizations are using to help them drive business and compete for consumer dollars. The survey shows that close to all of the people we polled (90%) rank site search, search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing as the most important e-commerce technologies helping to promote their online businesses.

Interestingly, we asked these same retailers what programs they would consider omitting from their marketing plans if faced with tightening budgets, and found that those who are minimizing spend due to current economic constraints are not inclined to diminish their core marketing programs – site search, SEO and email marketing – but would rather decrease spending on activities that are less results-driven such as podcasts, static display ads and online video.

It seems only natural that companies competing for shrinking consumer dollars would look to tools they can rely on to help them better appeal to consumers and keep those consumers coming back. We’re happy to report that site search and SEO are two best practices retailers are using to continue promoting sales and customer loyalty today, and in the future.

Related Items:

Lighting by Gregory Sees Sales Light Up with SLI

Posted by geoffbPress, SEO, Site Search1 comment

Last week we announced that Lighting by Gregory, one of the largest lighting and ceiling fan distributors in the U.S., has seen some impressive results from using our Learning Search site search and Site Champion user-generated SEO solutions. In fact, they’ve seen a 40% increase in their online conversion rate since deploying our technology.

With more than 150,000 products in their e-commerce inventory, the lighting retailer needed a robust, intelligent search solution that would give visitors an easy way to find what they’re looking for and not deliver items with little or no relevance in the search results. The company also needed something that returned results lightning quick and that could help customers further refine their searches. Their previous site search from Google just didn’t cut it. (Don’t get us wrong, we like Google and think their Internet search engine is a powerful tool (as does practically everyone else!), but site search is not their sweet spot. It IS ours, as Lighting by Gregory’s results show.)

Lighting by Gregory initially underwent a 30-day free trial, a standard offer for any new customer, and saw how quickly SLI went to work for them. They signed up immediately after the trial ended and have continued to see positive results.

As Lighting by Gregory learned, site search users usually bring in more revenue on average per visitor than those who opt to simply navigate the site. If your site search isn’t delivering the results it should, we’d love to go to work for you too.

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