Why Do I Need Site Search?

Q. Why do I need Site Search?

A. Did you know that 5-25% of all your site visitors use your Site Search bar? Did you know that Site Search visitors are more likely to make a purchase “today” vs. a non-Site Search visitor aka “browser”? Why you ask? The reason is simple. Let’s say that you walked into a physical store and you know exactly what you want to purchase but you don’t know where the product is located in the store. You walk up to a salesperson and ask him or her for the product, the salesperson will either walk you to the product or point you in the correct direction. You find your product and walk over to the checkout counter, swipe your card and you’re on with your life. Simple!
That salesperson that you just interacted with “was” the Site Search tool on your website. Site Search is the single most important piece of technology on your site that is used by your visitors and customers to tell you what they are looking for, to express their “tastes and preferences” and they expect results – answers! With an intelligent Site Search you can now actually provide the correct answer and take this valuable customer insight and track it, dice it and use it to further enhance your site’s relevancy for SEO, navigation, merchandising, and other on and off site marketing channels.
So now the question is, are you satisfied with the way your Site Search tool is interacting with your visitors? Are you satisfied with the answers your visitors and customers are receiving from your salesperson? Does your current Site Search technology even confuse you and make you want to abandon your own site?

Q. How many of my visitors will use Site Search?

A. The answer varies and has many factors such as the type of products you sell, the design (UI/UX) of your site, the loca on and size of the Site Search bar, and even personalization of the content that is located in the bar (call to ac on). E-Commerce websites can expect the Site Search segment to receive anywhere between 5 –25% of all traffic to the site (see image below). This may seem like a small number to some, but the purchasing power the Search segment has over the “non” Search segment (visitors who just use the navigation/ browsing) is actually quite an eye-opener when you compare the two segments to each other.

Q. How much of my site’s revenue can be attributed to Site Search?

‍A. See the answer to the question above along with the following answer...HawkSearch conducted many client surveys and analyses and found out that most e-tailers that used a “Concept-based Semantic Site Search” (that is Natural Language for you non-tech humans) service can expect anywhere between 30 –60% of total site revenues to be attributed to the Site Search segment alone! That is a HUGE number. Imagine that 6.6% of your site’s traffic was responsible for over 38.5% of your total revenue.

Or imagine if your analytics resembled the snapshot below. 16% of your site’s visitors used your Site Search tool and that same little segment brought in over 54% of your total revenue. Wouldn’t you start to pay more attention to that segment?

Q. How many transactions (orders) can be attributed to the Site Search segment vs. Non-Site Search?

A. Visitors attributed to the Site Search segment are known to be actual shoppers with a sense of urgency, or what we like to call “credit card in-hand” rather than a plain “browser” who is merely navigating around the site. We have seen numbers that widely vary anywhere between 40% - 60% of all transactions contributed to the Site Search segment.

Example A

There are a few very important points to take note of while analyzing these numbers further:
A. This client had 277,296 total sessions. 51,018, or 18.4% of all sessions used the Site Search. 18.40% is well above the industry average.
B. This client’s revenue is reporting $433,596.89 while $238,108.08, or 54.91% of revenue is from the Site Search segment.
C. In total, the site had 5,389 transactions while 2,681, or 49.75% of all transactions were from the Site Search segment (18.40% of all visitors).
D. The average order value for the Site Search segment reported $88.81 per sale vs. $72.19 for non- Site Search users.
E. Conversion rates for the Site Search segment were 338% higher than those not using Site Search. 5.26% vs. 1.20%

Example B

There are a few very important points to take note of while analyzing these numbers further:
A. This client had 763,745 total sessions. 121,799, or 15.95% of all sessions used Site Search.
B. This client’s revenue is reporting $734,809.44 while $397,918.63, or 54.15% of revenue is from the Site Search segment.
C. In total this site had 17,677 transactions while 9,234, or 52.21% of all transactions were from the Site Search segment of just 15.95% of all visitors.

In short, the Site Search segment is ready to purchase NOW, they have intent and are looking for something specific.‍

Providing your visitors with a Site Search that falls short and that does not provide relevant, fast and accurate answers on demand will all but definitely deter your potential customers and make them abandon ship quickly and shop elsewhere. If conversions, revenue, repeat business, and happy customers are in your “to- do list” then a Concept-based Semantic Site Search that understands “human language” and conceptual understanding should also be on that list-high on that list.
Numbers don’t lie, they tell the story of human interaction (analytics) on your site and as we can clearly see. The numbers above have illustrated a perfect commerce ecosystem which takes a fraction of the sites visitors, 18.40% and turns them into the most important and powerful segment of the site responsible for over 54% of revenue, 49% of transactions and a conversion rate of 5.26%.

The Site Search below has been placed and designed with a lot of thought towards user experience and overall ease-of-use. First, the dominant color of the header is red which only helps with the visibility of the search bar and makes it stand out and call for attention. The bar has been placed next to the “branding”, logo of the site but has been carefully separated from the right side of the header, which is home to the shopping cart, account, etc. Take note of the call to action within the search bar and the artistic blue “go” button which matched the shopping cart button which only adds to the elegance of the header which is clearly search-centric.

About HawkSearch

HawkSearch is an intelligent search and recommendations platform that powers success for any size business across all industries. Our goal is to equip organizations with innovative tools to deliver accurate and customizable search experiences that enable users to find the relevant results for their needs in context, no matter the device, platform, or language. With 1500+ implementations completed, HawkSearch is utilized for delivering engaging and personalized search functionality through our innovative features, which enable marketers, merchandisers, and developers to accomplish their goals.