Why Do Informational Sites Need a Smart Search?

Do you always remember the exact name of the movie? I don’t and most people don’t either. In this case site users will search based on what information they can recall like the name of the main character, the year of movie release, or movie genre. Most basic search boxes, however, cannot process ancillary information. This also happens on sites related to other topics. In this article, we will tell you what the search field should be able to do on information resources and how a smart search box can improve results. We will also give tips on how to integrate it for other websites.

What should a perfect search do for users?

People make mistakes all the time. The percentage of typos in search queries is 10-20%. Therefore, you should not expect visitors to make perfect search queries. This is independent of what your site's purpose is: goods, services, or information data. The search algorithm should be able to:

• Correct  typos and errors like "webanalytic", "webanaltic”;

• Determine keyboard layout;

• Understand Latin words written with the Cyrillic script such as "гугл тег менеджер”,"Google Tag Manager ”;

• Know morphology, for example "funnel", "funnels";

• Understand synonyms like "sales”, "trade".

This set of basic functions improves the search results up to 85-90%. 

Popular blogs and large websites will benefit from additional functionality, because it will easily direct people to the correct information or product. Therefore, make sure you add the following features:

• Autocompletions. They propose to users goods or information from the first letters of the request, according to the site data;

• Search query history  the functionality reminds the users what information they searched for and viewed on your site;

• Dynamic filters. Thanks to this feature, filters are formed from the characteristics of relevant positions for a specific search request. For example, articles can be sorted by author, date, subject, and other parameters;

• Direct transition. This functionality allows selecting search queries which leads the user straight to a category, filter, or article. The possibility of direct transition has a positive effect on SEO promotion and is welcomed by Google and Yandex. 

Do not forget about the need for an optimised mobile version. The search bar and the search results should be adjusted for monitors and mobile screens. Any images should also be correctly resized.

How will you know what your visitors are looking for?

How will you guess what information is being searched for on your site? It is enough to put yourself in the reader's place to get an answer. Just remember, if your site has some information, then the search engine must also know about it. Here are examples of what the data feed of information sites with different topics should consist of.

What information is needed in a blog?

A blog is like a library - you can walk for a long time between the shelves in search of the necessary book. But it is faster and more convenient to refer to a librarian, or as in our case - to use a smart search. Here is what you need to indicate on an article page to make the search bar understand a search request as accurately as possible:

• Title – "How to install Multisearch site search in 15 minutes via Google Tag Manager”;

• Author -- Natalia Kibalnik;

• Category -- Google Tag Manager, analytics;

• Date – the 4th of March 2020;

• Any other parameters (rating, time to read, region, company, etc.).

What will people look for on sites with movies and TV series?

In order not to become the source of disappointment a search box must think like a moviegoer and be able to find needed information even through the most unpredictable request. For example, "molificenta", "da winnie the cat", "robocop pony", "bounty abbey" or "Notre Dame de Paris". By the way, these are real requests from our partners` analytics. That's why the search box should be smart and how to access as much as data about the movies on your site. On the page with movie, don't forget to specify: 

• Title – "Pulp Fiction”;

• Rating – 8.6;

• Year – 1994;

• Country – USA;

• Genre – comedy, thriller, crime, drama;

• Actors – John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman;

• Director – Quentin Tarantino

• Duration – 154 minutes;

• Other information (the release, the scriptwriter, the language, etc.).

What to specify on the site with posters and events?

Your goal is to alert people to upcoming events and provide them with all the information they will need:

• Title – "HTML for Dummies”;

• Place – IT school “Progress”;

• Date – the 10th of August 2020;

• Time – 10:00 a.m.;

• Event type – conference;

• Duration – 2 hours;

• Other (lecturer, cost, etc.).

Thanks to data analytics we know what the buyer is looking for. This information helps us understand what results are better to display for user’s queries. The information that you place on your site must be passed in an XML/YML file. The more data you enter to feed, the better the search bar will work. Here what ranking factors Multisearch takes into account on information portals:

1. Text relevance or weights are distributed between the category name, article title, description, and other fields;

2. Headings h1-h6, text in links, bold text in description;

3. Number of comments and views, article rating;

4. Special offers (new product and others);

5. Additional external weight transmitted during indexing;

6. Synonyms (if any);

7. The date when the article was added/edited.

In the article "You asked, we answered: what is a data feed?", we talked about how to create an information feed and what you should definitely specify in it.

Effects after implementing Multisearch, what will happen?

Multisearch is smart and fast, it understands the visitor and positively influences the behavioral factor algorithm. Multisearch does the following: 

1. significantly improve page visibility in search engines for search requests that important for you; 

2. increase site traffic;

3. increase the duration of sessions – readers find a lot of relevant information with smart search and view on average 4 more pages before leaving;

4. increase the return rate of visitors – thanks to the good functionality of the search bar and relevant results, users return to the site 5 times more often;

5. reduce the bounce rate – smart search significantly increases the number of found queries, which reduces the outflow of visitors from the site due to the lack of search results.

The percentage of internal site search usage increases after Multisearch integration, which improves the loyalty of your audience. 

Our search has already integrated: 

• On the platform for publishing PR materials prnews.io blog; 

• On the billboard website kontramarka.ua;

• On devaka.ru - SEO blog;    

• On marketing-course.ru marketing blog;

• On other information portals.

Multisearch installation does not take much time and resources. We will provide you with the necessary expertise so that you aren’t burdened with complex technical problems.

What are the takeaways from this article?

• A site search box is a necessity for multi-page sites of any subject and direction;

• Smart search helps to reduce the bounce rate and to increase the session duration, and has a positive effect on the number of returned visitors;    

• You need to specify as much information as possible in the search database in order to get the search to recognize the user's search requests as accurately as possible.

A free trial period will help you check out the effectiveness of Multisearch, your smart and fast search. You will be able to evaluate all the advantages of Multisearch on your site for 14 days for free, just leave us a request.