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Search For It
By Robert Campbell on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
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Check it out my friend… Just about every popular blog has their search box in the top right. Yours is there, right? Mine certainly was. I repeat, was. That above the fold property is just too valuable for me now. I have big plans for it, no not an ad, but featured posts. I’ve wanted a featured post section up there for a long time now, but I felt the search box was far to important to have there. Well, Mr. Search Box, you have finally been demoted.
Searching Visitors, 1 Out of 305
Sorry, but 1 out of 305 unique visitors making a search just doesn’t cut it in regards to earning that highly valuable real estate up on top of my site. Putting my Google Analytics to work I simply searched for all content that had the title “Search Results” in it. Saw some funny ones, and apparently one visitor was determined to find swimming pools on this site. They searched for it almost 20 times! Looking at the last 46,000 unique visitors though, only 151 unique visitors made searches.
Pretty worthless at first appearance. Search on a blog or a website is really designed to ease navigation. I think because there has been so much stress to include it on your site (I know I have mentioned it several times on this site) that having a search function is so important, that it has filtered it’s way to the top on most sites.
Searched Weighed In
Seeing that the search function does get used, just not a lot, I’m keeping the form visible. It’s now located in the left sidebar, where I think it’s appropriately placed under recent posts. Don’t see what you looking for above? Search for it. The search function can also be found on my archive page. Search capabilities hiding? Not really. I’m actually thinking the search function might even get a little more use in it’s new location. We will see.
Does the search box on your site deserve premium space? It might be worth the time for you to find out.
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Category: Analytics, BWI Tags: Search, search box
I tested my blog, and I get 1 search for every 199. I’m keeping mine on top.
Ony just changed our blog… we didn’t have a search on the old blogger set up, but we have one now… and therefore I laughed when I saw this post!!
It was part of the new template we picked, and I was wondering if we needed it there! This post has made me think about that again!!
Not all cases are the same…On your site it seems like a natural fit. I could imagine going to your site, typing in the movie I want a review on, and there it is. Test or watch stats on usage.
Thanks for the advice. I’ll do exactly that!
[...] weeks ago I took a leap of faith, and moved by search box from a location that would be perceived by most as the best place to have it. It was in the header [...]