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: Merchandising Search and Navigation for Increased Conversions - Part 1

In this edition we're going to review some techniques you can use to merchandise within your site search and navigation pages. The powerful thing about these pages is that via the keyword they have typed in or the navigation clicks they have made, the user has given you crucial information about what they are interested in. This allows you to provide targeted merchandising.

First, the search and navigation needs to be effective. Visitors need to be able to easily find what they're looking for on your site. One common technique is to display the products you are trying to promote more prominently, i.e. higher on the page. You can place these "promotional" items at the top, or the side of the page, or use a graphic to draw attention to these items. For example our customer Ulta.com uses eye-catching graphics to draw the visitor to on-sale items.

Another effective technique is the use of context sensitive banners. In this example, a banner inviting you to "Visit one of our stores for an extensive selection of name brand grips" is only shown if the search term contains the word grips.

Many of our clients use custom landing pages for popular search terms and key product categories to maximize the merchandising opportunity in these areas. For example you can show visitors a page describing your merchandise associated with a brand name or product category when they enter that brand or select that category. Similarly, many sites that have catalogs will send a visitor directly to the product page if they type in a product number. This is a better experience than having a search results page with a single result.

There are many other merchandising techniques for your search and navigation pages. If you would like to know more - or if you would like to share some other techniques you are using then please contact us at sales@sli-systems.com or call (866) 240 2812.

Tips 'n' Tricks: Strive for a Clean, Simple Look

Whatever site search solution you're using, it's always important to have a clean, simple layout. Any solution you use should allow you to change the look of the search results to meet your needs, but always remember the KISS principle, and keep it simple! It's your site, so you decide what to show your users. With this freedom comes responsibility! It's tempting to add extra details to the search results page, but try to restrain yourself from overdoing it. For example, items like page size, stars to score each result, % relevance score, icons and other items may seem important, but they just clutter the page. If you don't believe us, just look at the experts. Have you ever noticed how simple the Google search results page is? Balancing the addition of functionality while keeping things simple is one of the most difficult tasks in design - and this is definitely true for the design of a search results page.

Recommendation - If you are unsure, mimic Google. Keep the design of your search results page simple and clean. And feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

If you have any tips or tricks you'd like to share, email us at newsletter@sli-systems.com.

SLI Systems & Customers in the News

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

STORES magazine: Site Search for Search Services - October 1, 2006

Multichannel Merchant: Search or Destroy - October 1, 2006

Pirates of the Caribbean and "V" for Vendetta Predicted to Have a Strong Showing this Halloween According to Fright Catalog's Site Search Data - October 9, 2006

SLI Systems Unveils Learning Navigation for Improved Navigation and Merchandising of E-commerce Sites - October 16, 2006

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