Site Search Analysis (SSA)
It is time to talk about the internal search engines of a website and how we can take advantage of them from an SEO point of view.
In SEO, as we conceive it at , we always look for synergies with other fields of digital marketing: Ads, RRSS, CRO, Analytics, UX,… We believe that it is the best way to lead a project to success. The view of the whole and its parts It helps to clear and pave the way towards the marked objectives.
In this specific case, that of the internal search engines of a website, directly touches the fields of UX and CRO and only indirectly SEO, which can rely, as we will see, on the internal search engine to improve and understand certain aspects of the strategy positioning and acquisition of organic traffic.
We believe that internal search engines are essential on ecommerce-type websites. With the predominance of mobile devices (Smartphone above all) and the paradigm shift in their use, to the detriment of so-called desktop devices, the way users navigate a website has changed. The use of the internal search engine to find products or product categories has in many cases replaced the usual navigation through the web menu, since the search engine (if present and usable) offers immediacy in the search.
“There is no more truth outside than in the world I created for you” (The Truman Show, Peter Weir-1998)
And how can an internal search engine help us in SEO?
It could be argued (and in fact it is usually done) that the work of SEO ends when the user has reached the web, but we believe that this vision is simplistic, and at the same time it can serve as an alibi for not going a step further in projects and, therefore, deprive SEO of enriching itself from other fields of digital marketing that already operate from the web (CRO, UX,…). More so since Google announced that by 2021 it will start using ranking factors based on data from the . Google wants the results it offers after a search to satisfy the user’s search intention, whether it is with a purchase, an information search or a download. And for this, it demands that the websites “get their act together” in terms of loading speed, accessibility and usability.
An internal search engine is, as its name suggests, a search engine and, therefore, it can be optimized to a greater or lesser extent. In addition, it can help us to complete our keyword research, to discover products, categories or searches in which we had not fallen; detect failures when naming certain products or services and new possibilities to categorize the web. And how do we do this?
What is the SSA or Site Search Analysis? How do I integrate SSA into my SEO strategy?
THE SSA (Site Search Analysis) is the analysis of the use and operation of the internal search engine of a website in order to improve its performance to achieve certain objectives that can range from improving conversion (CRO), to discovering user behavior in the if you (UX) or new keywords that can help us in digital marketing strategies (SEO, Ads, emailingcontents,…)
Focusing on SEO, the integration of the SSA can be done at various points in the strategy, although the ideal is to do it in an initial phase during the keyword research. However, for this, Analytics should have been configured (we explain it below) to be collecting information from the internal search engine. As this is quite infrequent to find it configured from the start, most of the time you will have to wait for the analysis after a few months. It will depend a lot on the traffic, type of business and use made of the search engine, to have a good database sooner or later with which to start analyzing and drawing some conclusions.
What insights can we get with the SSA for SEO?
Discovery of new keywords
This is possibly the most important point for SEO. By keeping a record in Analytics of all the searches that users make in the internal search engine, we can analyze new keywords that we had overlooked or perhaps different ways of calling our products or services. We may be able to contribute keyword research Thanks to our monitoring of strategic keywords, some very valuable new ones that point directly to the real searches that users do, it is even possible to know if that search has been refined by the user.
Analysis of visits that end in conversion
It is quite valuable to carry out this analysis to know, on the one hand, how much traffic ends up doing internal searches and, on the other, what behavior users have compared to the search data without using the search engine. As we can see in the example of the image, the traffic that ends up using the search engine converts much more.
Analysis per page
We can also analyze from which pages the searches are made and point out those data that seem striking to us. Metrics such as
Conclusions of the Site Search Analysis
Therefore, we can conclude that the SSA or Search Site Analysis SEO-oriented helps us:
- Discover new keywords
- Discover other ways to call our products or services
- Improve conversion
- Discover that we do not have certain products or services (and that we may be interested in having them)
- Position our products on the website itself after a search (this is allowed by some advanced search engines)
How do I set up internal searches in Analytics for tracking?
It is very simple. We tell you in 2 steps to make it as clear as possible:
- Locate the search parameter in the url generated by your internal search engine. In WordPress it is usually the “s” parameter; in Prestashop it can vary “search_category”, “s”, “search_query”; in Shopify “q”, etc. example Before the internal search “chicken” the url that Shopify generates for me is: https://example.com/search?what= chicken.
- Enter the parameter in Analytics by going to Manage > View Settings > Site Search Tracking.
Click on the activate button and if you have correctly entered the search parameter in the box, in a short time you will have the data in Analytics, ready to be analyzed!
In addition you can also follow the configuration with the
If you found this post about the SSA and its SEO implications interesting, the same thing happens with the post Leave us your comments, questions or suggestions. In the world of OZ we will answer you gratefully!
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