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A New Look at On-Site Search that Can Change Your Bottom Line

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For centuries, people have found hundreds of ways to communicate and collaborate for both professional and personal aims. Since the time when the Internet came into play, these channels of human communication have witnessed prominent progress. It has become especially significant and impressive in the last decade, with broader availability of the Internet and the development of new technologies.

Ten or twenty years ago having a website was seen as a kind of luxury, while today it is a widely used and important factor of personal, professional, and business growth. More specifically, since the rise of corporate websites, the core business of companies was to create websites with compelling, relevant, and searchable information — from product descriptions, location pages to blog posts. However, many of these companies have put too much emphasis on external search engine results and rankings, while overlooking the importance of internal search function capabilities within their websites — claiming that this functionality receives a low priority due to a false assumption of “a low percentage of our users are proactively searching for content within the website itself”, which we know is quite the opposite.

Up until recently, users were often faced with an overabundance of hazy or off-point search results, too few results, or, in some cases, no results at all. The search engines were implemented without consideration of user-profiles — thus the search suffered, and the site visitors made notice. When users encounter a bad search experience, they remember it.

Are publishers investing resources in the correct revenue channels?

In recent years publishers have started to understand that if they spend most of their resources on optimizing their SEO efforts but neglect optimizing the specific search capabilities and inquires within their website, they are basically not completing the goal of getting their readers to the final destination, which means failing to lead each user to the right content at the right time. In other words, when a prospective reader is searching within a website, their intent is different than when they conduct an external Google search because they are devoting time on your site. They offer you clues into what specific content, product or service they are interested in.

Today’s internal website search solutions provide both navigational and informational benefits. In addition, most modern websites and apps are jammed with information in multiple formats organized in a variety of ways across different microsites and subdomains.

By analyzing how and what visitors are searching for via your internal search tool, you can define what new content you can offer, update your keyword strategies for an organic search or even adjust your site structure to present the most searched for topics first. Furthermore, if your existing users are looking for specific information that you don’t have available yet, you can create new site pages accordingly. Utilizing search analytics will also help identify and determine website navigational or site structure issues. By solving these issues, users can get to the content they need most, including key transactional pages like forms and contact pages.

After talking with and meeting hundreds of online publishers (website owners, digital editors, design directors, etc.) from many different verticals, I was astonished to find that while many of them understand the importance of having an internal optimized search solution that improves their overall user experience, they don’t necessarily agree on spending resources for development and for conducting day-to-day maintenance. As a result of an ecosystem that keeps growing and that is getting more competitive every day, most publishers are very strict about measuring each expense carefully, thus neglecting maintenance and development on their own internal search widget/tool/solution. Their lack of attention and investment concerning this important issue can also result in a loss of extra revenue. Most publishers I talked to had the basic assumption that investing in an internal onsite search is an expensive business, which in most cases it is, but they were happy to hear about an existing alternative that is free — YES, we offer it for free.

Thus, we now see a crucial need in the ecosystem for the vast majority of content-based websites to find a cost-effective solution for this problem. We at Zoomd have recognized this new opportunity. We have created a top of the line, patented on-site search solution that will solve this exact need and much more. In recent years, we also started to offer monetization solutions for those publishers interested in improving their overall eCMP (average of an additional 3%-4% revenue within the first month), inviting publishers to add us to the existing waterfall.
Our search formula saves publishers’ resources and also provides the most optimal user experience. Who wouldn’t want to use it?

From years of experience and bulk data analysis from our publishers and longtime partners, we came to understand that up to 40% of online website visitors use a site search box when it’s offered.

It’s not enough to just create a nice internal search solution “on the fly” (i.e. one that is developed in-house or by a 3rd party) simply because you don’t have or want to spend the resources necessary to improve the search algorithms.

As a site grows more substantial with more resources, content, and blog posts, it becomes harder for visitors to find the content most relevant for them.
How can customers find the specific topic or resource article they are looking for without scrolling through an entire library of content?

The answer is simple.
Customers can effortlessly find content on your site using a customizable internal search tool that Zoomd has invented — completely free of charge.

About Adam:
Adam is the Senior Business Development Manager who defines, develops and executes Zoomd’s business strategy, leading the onboarding of new partnerships that mainly consist of tier-one websites from top markets. Adam has an international background and prior to Zoomd, has worked in sales and business development at ad tech and MarTech companies for over six years.
He is highly knowledgeable of publishers’ pains and needs in a market that changes on the fly. When he finds some time off, he enjoys sports activities and cooking.

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