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Earthquake in Christchurch

Posted by Shaun RyanSeptember 6, 2010About us, Press, Social Media1 comment

At 4:30am on Saturday morning Christchurch, New Zealand was hit by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. This is the location of our New Zealand office. Amazingly no one in the city was killed and there were very few injuries, despite there being widespread damage. Our staff are all well and, with one exception, have escaped major damage to their houses.

Our core services were uninterrupted by the earthquake. We did experience approximately a 10 hour outage of our email and our merchandising console. I apologize for that and we are working to build more redundancy into these systems.

Our office is on the 10th and 11th floors in a building in down town Christchurch. We had staff in the building at the time and they had a terrifying experience. Luckily they escaped unscathed. The office was a mess with bookcases toppling over and everything being thrown around. However our building is sound and there was very little damage, so we were able to quickly return things to normal. Our staff have been working from home but we expect them to be back in the office in the next day or two.

Approximately 60% of houses in Christchurch have been damaged and many buildings in the city will need to be demolished. We are lucky that as a company we have escaped relatively unscathed. The team is still in shock at what has happened – made worse by the continuing aftershocks. I expect it will take us a while for us to return to normal. Thank you for your understanding as we work through this.

Here are a few pictures:

This is typical of what our offices looked like after the quake. Although, to be fair, this guy was always pretty messy.

This is the road outside of the house of one of our team.

This is the roof of my house after the quake. One Chimney fell down during the quake and the other one had to come down soon after. This is common across the city.

Create refinements that make your site search more user-friendly, increase customer engagement

Posted by Shaun RyanAugust 25, 2010Newsletter, Refinements, Site Search2 comments

Refinements or facets, are one of the most important ways to address the myriad ways your online visitors can search your site. They allow visitors to narrow down search results based on certain product or content characteristics, so that searches can be completed in less time.

Refinements

But how do you choose which refinements to use? Do you mirror your product and catalogue structure, and run the risk of creating un-useful refinements? Or do you create refinements visitors are interested in? And in this case, which are they? By making a plan for determining which refinements to display and how to display them, you can find the happy medium – that is, the refinements that meet the needs of your customers, and that mirror your product and content choices. In this two-part series, we’ll cover best practices tips for both understanding what refinements to include, and how best to display them.

Which refinements to include?

The first step in choosing refinements is to examine the content that is indexed in your site search, and how this content is structured or broken down. For instance, your content might include product pages, blog posts, video, help-desk information, and social media content. Each type of content will have its own unique structure, which will dictate how you create refinements. For example, the structure for products could include price, category, brand, color, size, in-stock items, and so on – it all depends on your particular mix of products.

In some cases, structure can be inherited from other data. For example, products may have customer reviews, which in turn have ratings, and perhaps user-generated tags. Blogs may have structure such as author, date published, tags, and comments. These structures will provide you with a list of possible refinements to include in your site search.

Another way to uncover possible refinements is to examine popular keywords in your site search reports to see how many people are searching with refinement-related terms, like colors or gender (e.g. “men’s blue parka”). Another good source: SEO traffic reports from your analytics package, which give you an overview of what people are requesting from search engines.

Keep in mind that it’s not necessary to make every possible refinement available to your customers. Too many refinements will confuse the user, and some of the more obscure refinements will likely not get used very often. Have some conversations with your customers and ask them how they would like to be able to search and refine on your site. After these conversations, you may decide that some refinements will be displayed only after the visitor has selected another facet – for example, after people select a category, they’ll be able to select a subcategory.

In some cases, you may not have the data to provide the refinements. For example, customers of an online furniture store may want to be able to refine their search results by room. To add this facet, you need to add a “room” field to your product database. This can be an intensive process, so you should make sure such a facet adds value.

In next month’s newsletter, we’ll offer some advice on how to display refinements within site search results.

Rich Auto Complete is looking good

Posted by Shaun RyanAugust 25, 2010Site Search2 comments

We have a growing number of customers implementing Rich Auto Complete. We have some preliminary data from them and the results are looking very interesting. First of all some background…

What is Auto Complete

The precursor to Rich Auto Complete is Auto Complete. This shows search terms below the search box that match the characters you have typed into a search box. This is a common feature on web search engines, such as Google and is now a standard site search feature on many sites. We have been providing auto complete to our clients for a couple of years now. It’s a great feature because it helps searchers with their query formation, it reduces errors, and adds a little serendipity to the search experience.

dilbert auto complete

What is Rich Auto Complete?

Rich Auto Complete is a search feature that shows search results as you type into the search box. This is normally implemented using AJAX, which captures the keystrokes as they are made and sends the partial search term to a server which provides search results which match the partial search term. The example below from Best Buy Eyeglasses is showing a mixture search suggestions and products.

bestbuyeyeglasses

Some sites, such as Apple have had Rich Auto Complete for a long time. We have begun offering it to our customers over the past few months and are getting a lot of interest in this feature. The initial data from the analytics are looking very promising.

So what difference does it make?

First of all some qualifiers – this data is very preliminary, taken from only a few sites (not from the sites mentioned above).

A lot of people use this: 33% of people who search used the Rich Auto Complete (clicking on either a search suggestion, or a product)
Those that use this feature convert at twice the rate of those that don’t
The average order value for people who use this feature is 17% higher than for those who search and don’t use this feature.

We haven’t done an A/B test yet, so it could be that the people who use this feature would convert at a higher rate, with a higher average order value anyway. However the indications are that this is going to be a popular feature that significantly improves the performance of your website.

Why does it work?

Rich Auto Complete shortens the path from searching to buying. By allowing people to click on products directly from the search box it skips the need to see the search page.

The future

I’m sure that you will see Rich Auto Complete appearing on many sites over the coming months and years. It will start to become a standard feature. Linda Bustos from the Get Elastic blog predicted this last year. I’m only a year behind – but I support that prediction.

PS: Interestingly this hasn’t become a standard feature on the web search engines. Maybe this is because it significantly increases the bandwidth and query volumes they would need to support on their servers. I do remember seeing reports that Google was testing something like this a while back. This week there was another report about a Google test where they would update the whole search results page as you typed.

Digital Media Sites Need Good Site Search Too

Posted by geoffbAugust 3, 2010eCommerce, Site Search

Earlier this week we announced our new Learning Search for Publishers, a new variation of our hosted site search product aimed at the online publishing/digital media industry. The value proposition of a good site search in online publishing is similar to that of e-commerce: it improves the visitor experience, increases page views and can result in more sales. For publishers, our offering takes it a step further by providing useful data about search terms and resulting items clicked on to advertisers, giving them an opportunity to deliver more targeted ads to visitors.

Take our customer Dilbert.com (which we also announced yesterday). Dilbert.com recently added our site search to the popular cartoon strip site, making it much easier for fans to search the 20-year archive by character name or theme/topic (warning: if you engage in this activity you may find yourself wasting a LOT of time).

Dilbert’s previous site search didn’t allow for this, so people either had to know the exact date of the cartoon strip or search by character and hope they found it. Since the Dilbert.com site is supported by display ads, as well as licensing revenues (people license the comic strip for use in books, t-shirts, company newsletters and other things), a good site search is important to its business. Since deploying our site search, page views are already up 3 percent (a substantial number given that the site sees more than 1 million visitors a month), and the company says they also expect licensing sales to also increase.

Another benefit of an effective site search on a digital media site is the ability to drive visitors to the variety of content available – for example, videos and blog posts, and revenue-generating content, such as subscriber-only articles (some of our customers have also seen revenue increases from more people clicking on articles behind the pay-wall). Without the ability to refine and help narrow down searches to find the desired content, visitors are not likely to remain on the site or make return visits. And higher page views mean that online publishers can set higher advertising rates.

We’re excited about entering this new market and see lots of opportunity among media sites in need of better, more impactful site search. We’ll be talking more about the challenges publishers face and how site search can address them in the coming months, as well as some of the unique benefits our customers have gotten from using Learning Search.

Bring Social Media Content into Site Search Results to Increase Visibility

Posted by Shaun RyanJuly 28, 2010Newsletter, Site Search, Social Media1 comment

If you’re like most online businesses, by now you’ve probably taken the plunge into social media marketing. Maybe you have a company blog, or you’ve created a Facebook page and/or a Twitter feed to help build community – or perhaps you’ve created a YouTube channel for your company and product videos. But once you do all the hard work of creating this social media content, how do you attract an audience? There are many techniques to make site visitors aware of your social media initiatives. Here’s one that you may not have thought of.

Adding social media content to site search results is a great way to bring attention to your efforts in this area. Visitors who are searching for specific content on your site will see relevant social media posts within your search results, and will be encouraged to click through to your various pages – and hopefully, become fans and followers. Additionally, the added content can further help them in their purchasing decisions, and engage them with your company.

The addition of social media content provides a richer searching experience for your visitors and provides more opportunities to direct them to information to learn more about your products and services. Some of our customers have started doing this, so that when visitors enter their search terms in the search box, the search results will include links to posts on Twitter, Facebook and other sites.

Many ecommerce sites make the mistake of only providing site search for their products. We recommend that you add all of your content to site search – both content on your site (products, videos, blogs, helpdesk information, etc.) and off your site (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.)

When you’re ready to add social media content to your site search, we have good advice to offer. If you’d like to find out more about social networking and site search, contact us.

Sign up for Our Webinar with Brian Walker of Forrester

Posted by geoffbJuly 26, 2010eCommerce, Site Search, Webinar

On Wed., July 28 we’re hosting a free webinar featuring Forrester Research Principal Analyst Brian Walker. The webinar, “Unlock Powerful Customer Information to Generate Higher Conversions with Site Search,” will cover a variety of topics, among them – how site search data can reveal valuable information about customers and their research and purchasing intentions, and what you can do with this data to improve other marketing efforts and ultimately, your business. Brian is a reputable expert on e-commerce technologies and the user experience, and he has great insights to share about how retailers can make more effective use of site search to deliver the type of content and information people require to make a purchase.

In the webinar, Brian will discuss things like how you can discover from site search information whether customers are finding products in stock (or not) or if they’re looking for products not available on your site that you might want to add, and what products are trending in popularity. Site search data can also reveal long-tail keywords that are useful for SEO and paid search campaigns, and can help you determine how best to guide shoppers to items they seek through behavioral features like Related Search suggestions and Auto Complete.

The webinar will also discuss how you can incorporate site search data into other marketing activities, like personalized emails; on-site merchandising, banner advertisements and promotions; and content development, and the role site search plays on the mobile platform.

We hope to make the webinar interactive, so if you plan to attend please come prepared with questions and comments. You can sign up to attend this webinar at https://blog.sli-systems.com/brian-walker-forrester-site-search-webinar.php.

Congratulations to our Mobile Commerce Survey Winner!

Posted by geoffbJuly 26, 2010eCommerce

A couple months ago we conducted a survey about trends in mobile commerce (see the article here). We had more than 400 responses, which provided us with some great data about retailers’ readiness for mobile commerce.

We want to congratulate Barbara Hurst from Sally Beauty, who is the winner of our survey drawing for a Flip Mino HD video camera. We hope Barbara is enjoying her camera and look forward to seeing any video clips she chooses to share – maybe some footage from eTail West next month or another retail event.

IRCE 2010: Success in the Windy City

Posted by geoffbJune 30, 2010Conferences, eCommerce, Site Search

This year’s Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition was a great success – thanks to the team at Internet Retailer who worked so hard to pull off an amazing event!

Probably to nobody’s surprise, mobile commerce was a big theme this year. As our recent survey revealed, 80% of retailers haven’t yet tackled the mobile arena, but my guess is that’s going to change quickly in the months to come. Given the early results from some of our customers, it seems clear that having a mobile web site is not just about keeping up with trends, it’s good for business.

SLI had quite a presence at IRCE, with 14 members of our team on the show floor, and we also sponsored drinks on two nights (hopefully you enjoyed a cocktail or two on us). Three of our customers presented, and we saw lots of traffic to our booth. We also had a drawing for a 3-D TV and 3-D DVD Blu-ray player – the winner was Lada Heep, eChannel manager for Thomson Reuters. Congratulations, Lada!

If you were at IRCE 2010, hopefully we had a chance to connect – but if not, feel free to drop us a note if you have any questions or requests. Next stops are eTail East (Aug. 9-12, Baltimore), Search Engine Strategies San Francisco (August 16-20) and Shop.org Annual Summit (Sept. 27-29, Dallas). We hope to see you there!

IRCE2010

With Rich Auto Complete, pictures help tell the story and convert customers

Posted by Shaun RyanJune 30, 2010Newsletter, Rich Auto Complete, Site Search3 comments

Visitors to your website should always be offered easy ways to navigate your site, shortening the time it takes from the beginning of their search to their discovery of just the right product or content. A couple of years ago, we introduced Auto Complete, which makes searching faster by providing suggestions for keyword terms as visitors type. It helps site visitors formulate their queries and reduce spelling errors, speeding up the experience and adding a little serendipity.

We’ve now gone a step further with our latest search enhancement, Rich Auto Complete. The new twist is that in addition to seeing suggested keyword terms as they type, site visitors will also see product images and product descriptions connected to those keyword terms. This allows visitors to access the content they are looking for without even viewing a site search page.

You can see how this works on our customer’s site, Cruiser Customizing. If you’re on the site’s home page and you begin typing the search term “kawa,” you’ll be given several completed search terms, such as “kawasaki vulcan.” In addition, you’ll see a list of kawasaki-related products with accompanying thumbnail images. As you continue to type your search term, the suggested products and accompanying images will change based on the characters you’ve entered:

We’re confident that Rich Auto Complete will become a popular site search feature for our customers – we’re already seeing heavy usage of it, and we think it will become standard on leading e-commerce sites. It’s clear that Rich Auto Complete, in combination with an intuitive site search, can help site visitors find what they need and complete their purchases. If you’d like to try out Rich Auto Complete to see what impact it can have on your conversions and orders, contact us.

New Office Space Broadens our Horizons

Posted by EdHoffmanJune 23, 2010eCommerce, Site Search

Earlier this month we moved our North American headquarters into a new space in downtown San Jose. Our new location at 333 W. San Carlos Ave. is bigger, giving us plenty of room to grow. And if the past year is any indication, continued growth seems certain. (The views aren’t too bad either.)

As we continue to innovate new site search features and techniques and pursue new markets, demand for our solutions has grown. And so have our sales, marketing, development and customer support teams.

We’re also now fairly central to many of our customers and technology partners located around the Bay Area. Of course, we serve retailers and other Internet sites around the globe – and our UK and New Zealand offices have grown as well.

If you’re in the area, stop by and see us in our new location. And if you’re game, our team will gladly introduce you to the tempting grasshopper appetizers at the nearby Mezcal.

SLI Blog

Rich Auto Complete is looking good

Digital Media Sites Need Good Site Search Too

Sign up for Our Webinar with Brian Walker of Forrester

Congratulations to our Mobile Commerce Survey Winner!

IRCE 2010: Success in the Windy City

New Office Space Broadens our Horizons

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