SEO And On Site Search

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Tuesday, 8 of July , 2008 at 7:40 pm

As a website owner, or blog owner for that matter, you put a lot of work into the design, creating good content, and undertake a good search engine optimization program. The results, a well ranked site that sits fairly high in the search results for your keywords.

There are a lot of sites that meet that scenario. The search engine optimization techniques are spot on and they are receiving a steady flow of visitors through organic search results. You know your content is well written around your keywords yet your bounce rate - or short stay rate - is very high.

In fact rumor has it you may be reducing your ranking. If visitors land on your page, don’t see what they want and hit the back button, Google at least may well reduce the ranking of your site for that search term undoing all your good search engine optimization work.

There are many design issues that can cause a high bounce rate, however even well designed sited can suffer the same effects. Search engine optimization can get the visitor onto your site, what happens from there is up to you.

Part of your search engine optimization program should be a well thought plan for how your visitor navigates your site. One of these navigation tools is a simple on site search. We live in a world of instant gratification. I may wind up on your site, the content is close to what I am looking for. I have a choice, I can hit the back button and look at the next entry in the results, or can refine my search on your site. You need to make that option clearly available - and inviting.

If you look around many of the sites with search tools, that is all they are - often Google search bars at that. Simple text such as: “Refine Your Search”, or similar that invite the visitor to look a little closer at what you do have on offer. If your page structure is well laid out through effective search engine optimization, it will also produce good on site search results.

Don’t look at your on site search as just another function. Search engine optimization will bring the traffic in, on site search optimization may help those visitors access more of your content rather than disappearing off site.

Category: SEO

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