Site Search and What Visitors Type Into the Box

A box that takes notes

If your site has a search box, visitors are typing into it: a product name, a part number, parking, hours, a word you have never used on any page.

Each search is a visitor telling you, in their own words, what they could not find by clicking. Few kinds of feedback are that direct.

On most sites nobody reads them, because Universal Analytics does not record them until somebody switches the feature on. That takes about five minutes.

Finding the parameter

Analytics needs to know which part of the address holds the search. Search your own site for something simple, then look at the address bar.

On a WordPress site the address usually ends with something like ?s=parking. Many stores use ?q= instead. The letters between the question mark and the equals sign are the query parameter.

If the address does not change when you search, or the term sits inside the address rather than after a question mark, the search works differently. A developer can still pass the terms to Analytics with a small change.

Switching it on

• Open Admin in Analytics and choose the view you report from.
• Open View Settings and find the site search settings.
• Turn on site search tracking and enter your parameter.
• Tick the option to strip query parameters out of the address.
• Leave search categories off unless your search has a category menu.
• Save, and note the date somewhere you will find it.

The last matters more than it looks. Tracking records only from the moment it is switched on and never fills in the past, so every week it stays off is a week of searches nobody will see.

The fourth keeps the pages report tidy, since otherwise every different search appears there as a page of its own.

What the reports show

The results appear in Analytics under Behaviour, then Site Search, within a day or so.

The search terms report lists every phrase typed and how often. Beside each are search exits, the searches after which the visitor left at once, and refinements, the searches followed by another try.

The search pages report is the one people skip, and often the most revealing. A page where many visitors reach for the box is a page that did not answer what they came with.

Words you never use

The commonest finding is not a missing product. It is a different word.

The site says window coverings; customers type blinds. The site says outerwear; customers type jackets. The site lists a part by its catalogue name; customers type the number printed on the old one.

Each mismatch is a visitor who wanted something you have and could not see it. Use their words in menus, headings and product names, or at least somewhere on the page so the search finds it.

Searches that find nothing

Analytics records what was typed, not what came back. So take the twenty most common terms each month and run them on your own site.

A search for something you sell that returns nothing is the most expensive line on the list. The visitor knew what they wanted, and the site told them you did not have it.

The usual causes are dull: the product page never uses the word, the search reads only titles, or a plural finds nothing where the singular would.

A worked example

An outdoor power equipment dealer, selling and servicing mowers, trimmers and chainsaws, put a few hundred parts online and switched on site search tracking last autumn.

Two months later the list was not what the owners expected. Near the top were "hours" and "open sunday". Below them came dozens of part numbers, copied off worn air filters and old chains by people standing in their garages.

The store stocked most of those parts, but its pages named them by supplier codes, so the search found nothing for the numbers people actually had.

"Sharpening" came up every week. The store sharpened chains at the counter while customers waited, and no page said so.

The fixes took a week: opening hours in the header of every page, the common cross-reference numbers on each part's page, and a short page about bringing in a chain.

The list is now read on the first Monday of every month, by the person who orders the stock.

Hours, parking and things you do not sell

When hours, phone, address or parking appear in the search terms, the information exists but is not where people look for it.

The answer is rarely a better contact page. It is putting the phone number and hours in the header or footer of every page.

Searches for things you do not offer belong on a separate list. A few a month is noise; the same request every month for a year is worth a conversation about what you sell.

Personal details in the box

People type odd things into search boxes, including their own email address, a phone number or an order number.

Those land in Analytics as search terms, and Google's terms for Analytics do not allow personal information to be sent to it.

Scan the list for anything that looks like an email address or a phone number. If you find any, ask whoever looks after the site to strip them out before they reach Analytics.

The counter-case

On a small site the list may be a dozen searches a month. It is still worth reading line by line, but no single term proves much.

A site without a search box should not add one just for this. On a site of twenty pages, clear menus serve visitors better, and a weak search box can make the site seem emptier than it is.

Where the box exists, though, switch tracking on and read what people type.

Once a month

1. Search your own site and note the parameter.
2. Switch on site search tracking in View Settings.
3. Strip the parameter from page addresses.
4. Read the search terms on a fixed day.
5. Run the top terms on your own site.
6. Use visitors' words in menus and headings.
7. Check the list for personal details.

Step five is where most of the value lies. The report tells you what people wanted; running their words yourself shows you what they got.

Reading the other figures in those reports with care is covered in time on page and why it lies.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.