Internal Site Search: A Great Tool for You and Your Customers How your internal site search can be helping or hurting your business and what you can do to fix it Internal site searches are used by website visitors to find information on a website quickly and easily. Instead of using the website’s navigation, the visitor just types in the keyword, question, or phrase that they are looking for into the site’s search tool, and a list relevant pages on the website pops up. However, many sites have search tools that just don’t work well and need to be optimized. If used correctly, your internal site search tool is an invaluable resource that can help improve sales and customer satisfaction. Why Internal Site Searches are Important Up to 30% of ecommerce website visitors will use internal site search, according to eConsultancy. Internal searches allow the customer to search for exactly what they are looking for without clicking through mutliple page of the ecommerce site to find the product or information page that they are searching for. If your search tool gives them the result they are looking for quickly, it becomes easier for them to purchase from you. Internal site search tools are not only capable of helping visitors navigate your site; they can also provide you with information to improve it. Analyzing Your Site Search Tool Seeing what your customers are searching for, in their own words, can be very helpful. Your website analytics software most likely offers search tracking, or you can choose to use Google Analytics. Tracking searches enables you to track what site visitors are searching for and the results that they are getting. That information gives you valuable insight into what your customers want and whether or not your ecommerce site is able to provide it to them. How to Optimize Your Company’s Internal Site Searches Now that you have all the information about what customers are looking for, it is time to put it to good use. The data collected is the key to helping you optimize your internal site search. If the same question keeps getting asked, ensure that the link answering that question is the first one that is listed on the search results. If product numbers are being entered into the search tool, have customers taken directly to the product page instead of the search results page. If your customers are searching with keywords that your ecommerce site doesn’t use, start incorporating those keywords into your site. If you use filters, focus on which filters are used the most and see which ones you can eliminate if they aren’t being used. Your internal site search data is a wealth of information about what your customers want and need; be sure to use this information to your advantage. Clarity Can Help At Clarity, we have worked with numerous companies to help develop and optimize internal site search tools for their B2B ecommerce website. Our team is prepared to help you create or expand your B2B ecommerce site’s internal search tool. To find out more about how Clarity can help optimize your site searches, call or click to contact us today!