Mac SEO Blog

EverWeb’s in-site search widgets debuted with the introduction of EverWeb 3.5. These widgets easily let your visitors search your website on specific, predefined keywords, displaying the results either on the same page of your site, or on a dedicated search results page.

Why In Site Search Benefits You and Your Business

Using EverWeb’s in-site search widgets can of benefit to your business:

1. A Better User Experience – your visitors can find what they want quickly, which is beneficial for visitors who know what they are looking for. This results in a satisfied rather than frustrated visitor. You benefit too as there is a high probability of selling goods and services to this type of visitor.

2. Higher Conversion Rate: Those who use in-site search are often high intent visitors, so the prospect of converting them from visitor to buyer is higher, up to 5 to 6 times higher than a non-intent visitor.

3. Reduced ‘Bounce Rate’ – You usually want to keep your visitors in your site as long as possible, but often if a visitor cannot find what they want quickly, they will ‘bounce’ out of your site to somewhere else. Having an in site search feature will help reduce this risk.

4. Great for Mobile Users – Having to work through menus on mobile devices is not fun to do, so having a search field instead can save mobile visitors time and frustration.

5. Using In Site Search may have an SEO Spin off – Though not directly tied to Google SEO, a search function helps visitors access SEO-optimized internal pages more easily. It may also help index and expose older or buried content that still holds value.

EverWeb’s Search Field and Search Results Widgets

EverWeb, from version 3.5 onwards, includes two widgets that are dedicated to providing in site search.

Search Field Widget – This is the main widget you use to facilitate in site search. Once added to the page, you will see a search box and search button that you can configure in a number of ways in the widget’s Widget Settings.

Search Results Widget – Use this widget when you want search results to be displayed on a separate page in your site.

In addition to these widgets, if you implement search in your site, you can customize which page to use the Search on. This is useful as you may not want all the pages on your site to be searchable. To toggle this feature on or off per page, click on the Inspector button, click on the Page Settings tab if it is not already selected, then go to the Site Search section. Toggle the ‘Use in Site Search’ checkbox on or off, depending on whether you want the current page to be included in your site search or not.

Should You Use Site Search in Your Site?

You should include EverWeb’s in site search in your site if:

• You have more than 15–20 products or pages.
• You publish blog posts, articles, or tutorials.
• You sell similar or customizable items e.g. different colors, different sizes etc.
• You want to track demand or improve your user experience over time.

Using the Search Field and Search Results Widgets

If adding in site search capabilities is for you, then add the Search Field widget to your site. Usually you will want all of your pages to be able to access the widget’s search box, sort is recommend to add the widget to your site’s Master page. For more information on using the Search Field widget, check out our previous post. If you prefer your search results to be displayed on a separate page in your site, then use the Search Results widget.

Creating and Maintaining Good Search Practices in Your Site

EverWeb will look at fields such as your page’s text as well as fields that you use for SEO. As such, it is a good idea to take an SEO approach to completing fields on pages where you are using search. Typically this will mean completing the Web Page Title, Navigation Menu Display Name and Web Page Descriptions fields in the Page Settings tab. Additionally add in relevant keywords to the Search Engine Optimization section of the Page Settings tab as these will also be picked up for the in site search.

If you have many products and/or pages in your site, adding and maintaining a current list of keywords may take time and organization. You will want your list of keywords to always be up to date when you have added, removed, or changed products within the pages of your site.

Using in site search can be a real boon to your business and can help your visitors quickly and easily find what they are looking for. So it should be a win-win for your business and your visitors!