The past year saw continuous improvement in site search, particularly in the search interface. We rolled out Auto Complete to most of our clients, and we’re offering it as a standard feature for all new clients. We’ve made significant improvements to the way people can refine searches by color We’ve seen our customers add rich content types to their sites, and we’ve expanded our site search to incorporate this content – in particular, video and blogs. We’ve seen the increased adoption of ratings and reviews by our e-commerce customers, and the integration of that information into search.

In addition, we’ve added even more features to our merchandising controls, and introduced training webinars to help educate our customers on how to leverage these tools. And at the end of 2009, we introduced Learning Search with AJAX, our AJAX-powered site search.

So what’s in store for 2010? As e-commerce and other content-rich sites continue to focus on delivering a superior visitor experience, and as many marketers incorporate social media into their marketing strategy, we believe this year’s new developments will focus on features like mobile search, video, and the addition of Twitter (and possibly Facebook) feeds in search results.

We expect to see more people using our Learning Search with AJAX, and we expect to fine-tune that product as more customers start to use it.

2010: the Year of Mobile, Video and Social

Research shows that people are spending more time using smart phones and mobile devices to surf the web – and also shop. Given that, online retailers and other informational sites will need to devote resources to not only make sure that their site design suits the mobile platform, but that their site search works for mobile browsing as well. We think this will be a key area of innovation in the coming year.

We also think video will play a greater role online – particularly for e-commerce, because conversions dramatically increase when product videos are viewed. The growing use of video means that video should also be played up more in site search – whether it’s video icons next to items in site search results, or video banners for particular keyword searches on search results pages.

Finally, with the popularity of social media to increase brand visibility and improve customer loyalty, we see companies doing more to highlight their social media efforts – particularly with corporate blogs, Twitter feeds and Facebook activities – on their corporate web sites. We’ve recommended in the past that companies incorporate social media content into site search results, and we believe we’ll see more of this in 2010. Incorporating this content in site search gives potential buyers more information with which to make educated decisions about what to purchase.

Ecommerce Podcast Highlights Successful Online Retail Strategies

Last year, we launched the Ecommerce Podcast series, in which we interview ecommerce sales and marketing executives and talk to them about their strategies for building their online businesses. By the end of 2009, we posted 21 interviews with ecommerce experts from such companies as Internet Retailer, Title Nine, Shop.org, Century Novelty and Interflora UK. In addition, we interviewed key ecommerce industry analysts, including Susan Aldrich from Patricia Seybold Group, and Brian Walker from Forrester. Some of our more popular interviews were downloaded up to 1,500 times.

As we continue the podcast series in the coming year, we’d like to know who you’re interested in hearing from. Have a suggestion for an ecommerce business or executive you’d like us to interview? Email your suggestions to newsletter@sli-systems.com

In our August newsletter, we outlined some basic steps to make your existing site search even better for your visitors. We have more good advice in store for you this month, with ideas that can make your search feature easier to find and use – which, of course, increases the chances that visitors will locate what they need, and even make purchases at your site.

• Position the search box “above the fold,” or high up on the webpage so that visitors don’t need to scroll down to find it – data shows that people who search rather than browse are 2-3 times as likely to convert, so encourage them to use your site search by making it easy to spot at first glance.
• Test different positions for the search box, and identify which positions generate the most search traffic – our customer Black Forest Décor did this, and moved its search box from the right-hand upper corner of its site – a common placement for the search box – to the center of the page. They also made other changes to the search box, such as increasing its size and using bolder colors to make it stand out. This all added up to a big jump in average revenue from site search.
• If you use text like “enter search here” in your search box, use JavaScript code so that the term disappears as soon as people click on the box or start typing within it – otherwise, search users have to take steps to delete the term, or they need to overwrite it with their search term – and this can increase the likelihood of spelling errors and poor search results. Generally speaking, you want to avoid forcing extra steps on your visitors – search should be as painless as possible.
• Consider putting the cursor focus in the search box – in other words, code the page so that the cursor is automatically in the box, and visitors can start typing their keywords immediately – our customer Surveillance Video is a good example. As you can see when you visit their site, it’s fast and easy to start a search. Just remember that if you do place the focus on search, do so only on those pages where search is the primary box. If there is another form on the box that a visitor clicks on, and the visitor starts typing into that box while the page is still loading, then the focus will switch to the search box while they’re typing – which can be confusing.
• Add auto complete, which suggests possible terms when visitors type the first few letters of a keyword – it’s especially useful for hard-to-spell searches, and saves time by requiring fewer keystrokes.

Do you have additional ideas for simple ways to make search better? If so, we’d love to hear them – just drop us a line and let us know.

Most web browsers, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox, now feature an integrated search box. Typically these search boxes are pointed to Google or another popular search engine to make it easy to search the web. You can add options to use other search engines from this search box, including your own on-site search. Even better, you can easily add an option to allow your customers to add your on-site search to their browser’s search box.

The easiest way to do this is to use OpenSearch XML. This is a small piece of XML code that you publish and link to. The code tells the user’s web browser how to send queries to your site search. This process is invisible to your site visitors, but it makes it easy for them to add your site search to the list of search engines accessible from their browser. Once your site search is added, it’s easy for the user to search your site whenever they like – without having to go to your web site first.

You can see how this works on the site of our customer, altestore.com. Once you have conducted a search on their site, you have the option to add their site search to your list of search engines. In Firefox, this is done by clicking the arrow beside the browser search box, and selecting “Add AltE Store.” This is particularly useful for internal staff, or for your most loyal customers. It makes it easier for them to search your site, because once it is set up, they can search from any webpage. I personally use this for our own intranet search all the time.

If you’re an SLI customer, we’ll publish this XML code as part of our service. If you’d like to know more about this feature, please contact your Customer Success Manager.

Once you have published the OpenSearch XML, you need to let your customers know about its availability. For instance, you can create a page on your site describing how to add your site search to their browser, you can include the instructions in a newsletter, or you can add a blurb on an advanced search page. Let us know which methods you’ve tested, and what works best for your audience.

We spend a lot of time in this newsletter talking about the importance of a good site search – how it can lead to higher conversions on e-commerce sites, how it can improve the overall user experience and foster better customer relationships for any ecommerce or content-rich site, and how site search can provide crucial information for strengthening your  SEO and paid search efforts.

This month we get back to basics with some tips for how to make sure your site search – which is (hopefully) already delivering a good ROI for your business – perform even better.  (Not sure if your site search is delivering good ROI?  We’ll address that topic in one of our upcoming newsletters, so be on the look-out!)

• Make your search box easy to find.  This may seem like a no-brainer but it’s amazing how many sites still have the search box either too small to see or hidden away amidst content clutter.  One of our customers – Black Forest Décor – did an experiment a while back to see what would happen if they gave the search box more prominence on the page.  So they made it bigger, used bolder colors to make it pop and moved it to the center of the page.  And guess what?  Their conversions and revenue from site search went up significantly.  You can read all about it here.
• Make sure the search box isn’t confused with other boxes.  This ties into the 1^st point above – again, you want to make sure the search box stands out and is easy to find.  You may have similar looking text entry boxes on your site where people can subscribe to a newsletter or enter a company’s ticker symbol to find financial information.  To differentiate the search box you can put the words “SEARCH” in it, move it to the center of the page or use different colors than you use for other boxes on the page.  If you have a form for people to subscribe to your newsletter – put plenty of cues around it that an email address should go into that box. Read more here.
• Leave the user’s search phrase in the box after conducting the search.  This makes it easy to  for them to change the search after they’ve done it – for example they may want to add another term. 
•  Include a search box on every page.  Some sites show the search box just on the home page but nowhere else on the site.  Many people will start navigating a site before resorting to the search – if you have a search box on every page, then it will make it easier for them to find the search when the navigation doesn’t work.  Having site search as part of your site-wide navigation assures visitors will always have a way to find what they seek.

Are there other simple steps you’ve taken to improve your site search that have had a positive impact?  If so, we’d love to hear about them.

And if you haven’t done so already, be sure to join our new LinkedIn group – Site Search + the User Experience –  where you can share tips like these, ask questions and participate in discussions about making the most of site search and your customers’ experience online.  You can find the group here and then just click to join.