As part of a recent overhaul of my site I added a search function.
Not every site in the world needs this, but once you get over a couple dozen pages it can be very useful. I chose Google’s Custom Search tool and I am very pleased with how robust this search tool is, but then again, Google does search pretty well.
If you have a blog as part of your site (and you should) then pages can add up pretty quickly and a search function makes your site much easier to navigate when someone is looking for something very specific.
The thing I like about it is that it is extremely flexible from a design standpoint and allow you to create your own results page, keeping the entire search experience on your site. Since I have about 10 sites as part of the Duct Tape Marketing family, it’s nice that I can add those sites into the mix that gets searched.
Another benefit is that you get statistics and start to see patterns of what people are searching for on your site either because they want more information or they can’t find what they want – good stuff to know.
There’s also a side of me that wonders this: If you build a new site, and add it to a custom site search set-up, wouldn’t Google need to spider and index that site pronto to give you results. Just a thought!
Test it out with the search box at the top of the page here.
There is a free version and a $100 year professional version for large volume sites.
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Paul Simister
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Small Business Marketing
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Mary Motz
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Bruce from The Bookshop Blog
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Shabbir
