Telescope: Everything You Need to Know About Search
Welcome to this edition of Telescope on Search, our monthly newsletter devoted to search. Our goal is to
offer a regular, quick-browse e-newsletter with useful information, tips, and news of the latest developments
on Site Search, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, and site usability. If you have any
feedback or questions please direct them
to newsletter@sli-systems.com.
Feature: Feature: Is Your Search Producing Relevant Results, Even if the Search is Mispelled?
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Shaun Ryan
CEO, SLI Systems
We've all done it. You type a term into the search box on a Web site, but make a slight misspelling error and
find yourself staring at a page very different than the one you expected.
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Or, you type in 'coat' and the site
might refer to what you're looking for as a 'jacket' so your search doesn't yield the anticipated results.As a
searcher, both scenarios are frustrating and may cause you to leave the site empty-handed. As an e-commerce
business you rely on the site for your livelihood and you know that if you’re site search doesn’t produce relevant
results your losing sales.
Measurement
We've put together some interesting statistics on misspellings from the site search we provide for a handful of
our clients. We used a broad definition of a misspelling. If a search phrase contained a word that is not
available on the site, then we counted it as a misspelling. This included words that are spelled (or spelt?)
correctly but just aren't on the site. For example if you search for "razor" on Tupperware.com, you can't find it
anywhere on the site, so we would count that as a misspelling even though razor is spelled correctly. So this
yields an upper limit.
On Average 10% Not Found
On average, 10% of queries contained a word that wasn't found on the site. This was higher than we expected and
puts even greater emphasis on the importance of having a spell checker function as part of your site search. It
also highlights the significance of paying attention to search terms on your site that yield poor results (which
is a larger set than the terms that contain words not in the index). Interestingly the client with the lowest rate
of misspellings is one that pays a great deal of attention to our report that shows search terms with poor results,
and regularly updates their synonyms to try and improve these terms.
Site Search Has Higher Conversion Rates
Recent Marketing Sherpa data reveals that 43% of visitors who land on a website go immediately to the search
function. And customers who use the search box on e-commerce sites convert at nearly three times the rate of
general browsers. Thus, if visitors to your site retrieve zero results or poor results from a misspelled search,
they have already moved on to find a site that does have what they want. Why lose them when you could have
otherwise achieved a sale?
Next Steps
There are a number of tips and tricks that we can provide (and we will, in next month's newsletter) to help
you continue to improve your site search results. In the mean time, remember that it's no coincidence that the
most flexible and useful site search implementations belong to businesses that recognize the importance of a
good customer experience. By helping customers quickly and easily find the products they seek, they will reward
you with their purchases.
If you have any comments you'd like to share, email us at
newsletter@sli-systems.com or feel free to post a comment on
our blog.
SLI Systems & Customers in the News
Below are links to recent news articles highlighting our Learning Search service:
Online Data Drives Sales - RIS News, April 2, 2007
American Bridal Boosts Revenue from Site Search Visitors 400% - Internet Retailer, April 5, 2007
Google's "Unhealthy Dominance" Could Harm Search Market - Computing, UK, April 18, 2007
Upcoming Events
SLI will be exhibiting at the following events:
Internet World
May 1 - 3, 2007
London, UK
ACCM
May 21 - 23, 2007
Boston, MA
Internet Retailer Conference
June 4 - 7, 2007
San Jose, CA
If you have any comments or suggestions for future issues please email us at
newsletter@sli-systems.com.
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