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: Is the Search Box Easy to Find on Your Site?

Shaun Ryan CEO, SLI Systems Do you ever find that you're typing in the wrong box when you're trying to search within a Web site?

Many sites are so eager for people to subscribe to their newsletter or RSS feed that the text box asking for their email address is more prominent than their site search. Since many visitors wish to search first, this could potentially confuse or frustrate your customers.

Often, people (like me) who want to search on a site will quickly scan the page looking for what resembles a site search box. Unfortunately, I frequently find that I'll pick the wrong box and start typing my search term where an email address is expected.

While this "lead-capture" tactic can pose an inconvenience to your site visitors, the jury is out on whether or not it has an impact on conversion rates. Tamar Weinberg recently blogged about this and gave some excellent examples.

If you have a subscribe box on your site it would be fairly easy to estimate how big a problem it is for your visitors simply by examining how many incorrectly formed email addresses are passed through the subscribe form (in other words, you see a lot of what look like search terms rather than actual email addresses).

My general advice is:

• Your search box should be near the top of your page and above any other text entry boxes.
• If you're going to have non search text boxes on your site then add plenty of cues as to the purpose of the box.

An example of good practice is our customer's site, Blair.com where the subscribe text box has four cues:

• an image of an envelope above the box
• the title "E-Mail Specials"
• the text "Enter E-mail Address" in the text box (which clears once someone starts typing in the box)
• an example email below the box

Each of these cues reduces the chance that someone would mistake this for a search box.

Another tactic we often see is placing text inside the search box, inviting you to search. You can see an example of this on Cell Phone Shop:

I'm of two minds about whether or not this is a good thing to do. On the one hand, you'll likely see the text (in this case "search...") show up in the list of popular search terms used on your site. When there's already text in the box, people often inadvertently click "Go" before typing in their own search term. On the other hand, it's really no different than people doing empty searches. In either case, you should make sure the results page shows something sensible.

Where is the search box on your site? Is it problematic, or have you found a way to avoid confusing your visitors? I'd be curious to hear what you are doing.

If you have any comments or suggestions for future issues please email us at newsletter@sli-systems.com or feel free to post a comment on our blog.

Introducing Todd Watson, SLI's New Partner Program Captain

We're excited to announce that Todd Watson has joined the SLI team as Director of Global Business and Channel Development (which includes the important job of overseeing our partner program).

Todd comes to us from our partner Prosodie Interactive, an e-commerce platform provider, where he was responsible for Eastern region sales. Todd was instrumental in helping us work with two of our joint customers - Mikasa & Company and ULTA.

Todd, who is based in Boston, has exceptional experience working with industry leaders in all aspects of the e-commerce technology ecosystem. This includes SEM agencies, web analytics providers, e-commerce platform solutions, and email marketers.

If you have any questions for Todd, you can reach him at todd.watson@sli-systems.com.

Calling All Writers!

Do you have an interesting story to tell about your company's experiences with SLI Systems, or your general approach to site search and/or search engine marketing? If so, we'd love to have you contribute to our monthly newsletter. We know our subscribers would enjoy reading about what others in the industry are doing.

So if you'd like to see your name in print (okay, in email text), send an email to newsletter@sli-systems.com. We'll be happy to give you some guidelines and work alongside you to draft an appropriate write-up.

SLI Systems & Customers in the News

Below are links to recent news articles highlighting our Learning Search service:

Taking the Next Step: Robust search function helps Footwear etc. drive incremental sales - STORES Magazine, March 1, 2007

Savvy Site Search Specs - Ecommerce Guide, March 5, 2007

Todd Watson Joins SLI Systems as Director of Global Business and Channel Development - March 13, 2007

If you have any comments or suggestions for future issues please email us at newsletter@sli-systems.com.