For millions of businesses, the company website is fast becoming the most important touchpoint for prospects and customers. But, what may be less obvious is that having high-quality, easy-to-use and intuitive website search increasingly determines how positive a potential customer's site visit will be -- and whether they'll return.
More specifically, we've found that most users of online websites are getting impatient with endless navigation options and are increasingly looking towards search to interact with the site. In fact, research suggests that when navigation attempts fail, 50% of users turn to search
1.
Yet most sites aren’t equipped to meet these expectations – 85% of site searches don’t return what the user sought
2, and 22% return no results at all
3. The cost to companies is clear: 80% of visitors will abandon a site if search functionality is poor
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Ultimately, providing quality search on your website can point your visitors to the most relevant products, and turn your visitors into customers. For instance, leading distributor WaterFilters.net implemented
Google Site Search to enhance customer experience. “Our bounce rate decreased by 4%. Our conversion rate increased by 11%.”, reports Jamin Arvig, their director of business development.
Increasing your web conversions – or the percentage of visitors that become sales leads – is a key predecessor to increasing sales.
The success of EMC and
Google Site Search on EMCInsignia.com also underscores this point. A website featuring six software products for SMBs, EMCInsignia.com had a large number of website visitors and no website search. Within a week of implementing
Google Site Search, 10% of their visitors were using search. Within a short time, they witnessed a 20% increase in e-commerce sales.
We believe so strongly in the importance of website search that we're even offering giveaways to encourage businesses to adopt search. If your website doesn't have search, submit your website URL in our giveaway, and you'll be automatically entered to win a free Google T-shirt -- or free Google Site Search for a year!
Additionally, to learn more,
register for a special webinar on June 10th,
"Google Site Search: Increase Your Online Sales"We hope to hear from you.
