Optimizing your search box

1. Place your search boxes in visible locations.
   
   Integrate your search boxes in easy-to-find locations, such as under the header or in your left navigation. Also, keep the placement of your search boxes consistent on all your pages, so users will know where to look if they need help finding something.
   
   
2. Add two search boxes to content-rich pages.
   
   For pages with a lot of content or which require scrolling, try placing one search box at the top of the page and another at the bottom. A box at the top of the page will allow users to perform a search immediately, and a box at the bottom will provide a search option to users who've just finished reading your content. You can also track and compare the performance of each search box by creating custom channels.
   
   
3. Host your search results on your own site.
   
   To keep users on your pages, you can host your search results and ads within your own pages. If your users don't find what they're looking for in the search results or ads, they'll still be able to to navigate to other sections of your site using your site's template. In addition, you can further integrate your search results into your site by customizing the colors of the results page.
   
   
4. Add a search box to your search results pages.
   
   Similar to #3, try placing a search box on your search results pages so users can perform additional searches from your site.
   
   
5. Customize your ad locations.
   
   Place ads at the top and right sidebar of your search results pages. This layout offers added visibility, and our tests have shown that these ad locations can improve monetization.

10:38 AM - 8/11/2008 - post comment