Put the Search Experience in Digital Experience

Sitefinity and Hawksearch can enrich the customer journey with on-site search, optimize results with filters, recommendations and personalization, and increase revenue.

I recently co-presented a webinar with one of our technology partners, Hawksearch, Why Most Companies Fail at On-Site Search – And How You Can Nail It, discussing the impact site search has on your customer’s digital experience.

Watch the webinar

Back about 20 years or so, was the point at which search started to become its own market. Before the 21st century, search was more of an informal retrieval of text-based content. Web crawlers would scan web pages and index the content, allowing search technology to find specific words the user typed in. The result, a list of links which contained the search string. While helpful, it only narrowed down the scope end users were looking for.

At the turn of the century, a couple of businesses invested their “dot-boom" venture funds to commercialize search. Google, Amazon, Yahoo! and Alta Vista—boy, that brings you back in time—were some of the leaders in commercializing search. They, predominantly Google and Amazon, created an experience, a differentiation, around searching the internet to find solutions, and not just results. This paradigm shift boosted Google and Amazon as companies, but it had a greater impact on our digital expectations.

For those sites delivering great search experiences realize the rewards from their investment and forethought.

• 3X greater conversion rate as compared to visitor who browsed by navigation alone
• 61% of B2C customers and 94% of B2B customers research online before making a purchase decision
• Those who use site search are 2X more likely to make purchase

Modern search applications are not specific to an ecommerce use cases, but for all types of website, both large and small. Modern customer expectations do not change based on the size of the site and are continuing to grow and evolve based on what they feel is valuable when searching:

• Search should provide answers not just choices
• Your site search technology should be as robust as internet search engines
• Site search should offer rich media results—images, videos, audio, and text

Not all site searches applications are the same, much like the differences in CMS technology. Here are a few features you should look for in your search tech:

• Search is key to digital experience—Modern content management systems and search offer a competitive advantage and help keep end users loyal.
• Recommendations is search 2.0—AI Intelligent sourced search provides the data driven results to expand your client’s customer journey.
• Normalization and enrichment—Hawksearch’s Search Information Manager and Progress Sitefinity provide a powerful customer experience.
• Size of site doesn’t matter—Driving content strategy across an omnichannel delivery provides positive digital experiences.
• Putting search in marketing hands—Putting marketing tasks in the hands of marketers is key. No need to submit an IT request to make simple changes to the search platform.

Just as you are investigating and evaluating a modern CMS, like Sitefinify, consider combining modern site search as one way to enhance your end users’ digital experience.

Watch: How Hawksearch gets results