Google Analytics Site Search tracking: do you need it?

I’ve been working as a web analyst for the past seven years, and often I see people missing the opportunity of getting closer to the user and improving the site engagement. Sometimes they aren’t even sure if this search box is necessary.

Marketers dream about getting into customer’s shoes, dig into his head, but for some reason, Google Analytics site search tracking is often neglected. I’ll tell you a secret: surprisingly, it is a way to get into the user’s head. Once you set it upright, you’ll be able to do amazing things.

Read the user’s mind

I’m serious — the communication on your website is always about you telling how good you are at solving people’s problems. Let the user talk about himself. When someone comes to your website and searches for something, he sincerely tells you what he wants. Why not use it in new products and offers development?

You don’t need to go to trends or something — here they are, the trends. If you have a phone store and everybody’s crazy about the new model of Xiaomi smartphone — maybe you should put it in sales? The closer you are to your users, the higher the chance you can satisfy their needs, and the more revenue it can bring you.

Analyze the quality of your landing pages and the quality of the results

In your Google Analytics reports, you can see where the user starts searching and how many pages he sees after the start. If he leaves right from the results page, probably the results were irrelevant, and we know it can be annoying.

It’s not the question of “to keep them” — it’s a question of “not to lose them.” The fewer users you lose because of your low-quality content, the more revenue you can get.

Keep the user on your website as long as possible

It’s closely tied to my previous point: if the user always finds something interesting to look at — you’re great. The higher the engagement is, the more likely the user is to convert, the more revenue you get.

Do an out-of-the-box remarketing

Do the segmentation (for example, analyze what searched users from California) and use this data for the remarketing strategy. The more effective remarketing campaigns you do, the more revenue you can get.