Improving site search with search analytics

Audun RundbergJune 22nd, 2013

#uxce13

@audunru

Be just as good as Google - in 3 small steps:

1. Index everything you want to search

2. Design a search form:

3. Show the best results first when people search on your site

Search!

Is it that simple?

Photo: Google

Photo: Google

Photo: Google

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

B38,4%

C34,3%

F3,9%

E8,1%

D3,9%

A3,3%

1,6% 1,6% 1,6%1,6%

1,6%

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

ContentLinksDomain historyUser behaviourSocial media sharing

Google vs You

Google• Billions of documents• User behaviour data from

hundreds of millions of users• 50.000+ employees

Your search engine• 100-100.000 documents• Probably not used very much• 0-1 employees

Big country

Big websites

Bigger countryEven

biggerwebsites

#1 Check your search results

When users search your site, they’re telling you in their own words

what they want from your organization. In Search Analytics for Your Site,

Lou Rosenfeld shows you how to harvest and analyze search query

data to improve your site’s search performance, content, navigation,

metadata, effectiveness, and overall user experience.

“If we all agree that user feedback will improve any site’s user experience, why aren’t we spending more time with the actual words our audience uses when asking us for stuff? I can’t imagine a more experienced guide than Lou Rosenfeld to help us put this amazing data to work.”

JEFFREY VEEN Founder & CEO, Typekit

“Search Analytics for Your Site lays out pretty much everything you need to know to mine your query data and convert it into a positive customer experience.”

ERIC T. PETERSON Founder and Author, Web Analytics Demystified

“Lou Rosenfeld’s Search Analytics for Your Site is a superlative work from the initial story to the final chapter on bridging web analytics and UX practice. Great book!”

CHAUNCEY WILSON Senior Manager, User Research

“This is one of those rare books that makes me pound the table with my fist and yell, ‘Yes! Exactly! Awesome!’ while I’m reading it.”

KRISTINA HALVORSON CEO, Brain Traffic and author, Content Strategy for the Web

www.rosenfeldmedia.com

MORE ON SE ARCH ANALY TICS FOR YOUR SITEwww.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/searchanalytics/

S E A R C H A N A LY T I C S F O R Y O U R S I T E Conversations with Your Customers

b y LO U I S R O S E N F E L D

forewords by Steve Krug and Avinash Kaushik

SEAR

CH

ANALY

TICS FOR

YOU

R SITE

by LOU

IS RO

SENFELD

Most common queries

0

62,5

125

187,5

250

1 9 17 25 33 41 49 57 65 73 81 89 97 105 113 121 129 137 145 153 161 169 177 185 193 201 209 217 225 233 241 249

Top 50 queries: 10% of searches

50 of 23,252 total queries: 0,2%

PPM

PPM

5. place... Good enough?

Query Best result

vacancies 1sia 2ppm 4plane tickets 24travel 3Average 6,8

Old – Jan 31 New – Jan 31 New – Feb 22 New – Apr 170

2,5

5

7,5

10

4,2

9,3

1,74 1,27

Average position of best result

Most common queries1. Find the 50 most used queries in your search statistics, or as

many as you have time for2. Perform a search for each query3. Decide which result is the best4. Write down the position of the best result5. Calculate the average6. Repeat from time to time

Google Docs spreadsheethttp://bit.ly/uxce2013-search

Long tail queries

Take 100 randomly selected queries

«Long tail» queries1. Take 100 randomly selected queries from the «long tail» 2. Categorise them3. Perform a search for each query4. Decide which result is the best5. Write down the position of the best result6. Calculate the average7. Repeat from time to time

Relevance

How to measure1. Find the 50 most used queries in your search statistics, or as

many as you have time for2. Perform a search for each query3. Rate the five first results from A to C

A. Perfect resultB. Not perfect, but the user will get to the right pageC. Irrelevant

RelevanceQuery Result #1 Result #2 Result #3 Result #4 Result #5 Relevance

(strict)Relevance (less strict)

mesys A B B B B 20 % 100 %

glasses A B C C C 20 % 40 %

cell phone A C B B B 20 % 80 %

Average 20 % 73 %

#2 Improve your search results

Photo: !ickr.com/kendo26

«hytte»«company cabin»

Result 1 - 66.762 points:Date: 923 pointsIA: 60.000 pointsWord matches: 66 pointsTitle matches etc.: 5773 points

Result 2 - 62.637 points:Date: 946 pointsIA: 56.000 pointsWord matches: 31 pointsTitle matches etc.: 5660 points

Remove irrelevant results

• Front page• Admin pages• Different views of the same

page (e.g. screen and print versions)

• Duplicates

Metadata matches

• Results that match the user profile property «Location» get a higher score

• Also good for filters

Rewrite content

• «training» instead of «competence-increasing measures»

Use synonyms

• Create a company-specific list of synonyms that your search engine doesn’t already know about

Adjust the algorithm

• Title match is more important than a text match

Boost individual results

• Quick solution if a common search query gives bad results

• You need a plan for how to review manual changes

Give unimportant content a negative boost

• Older news articles or archived content receives a negative boost

Buy a new and more expensive search engine that will solve all your problemsLet me know if you find one!

Thank you!