Despite being confused for the same thing often, on-site search and SEO are two completely different things. SEO stands for search engine optimization: the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine. On-site search refers to the search engine (search bar or box) within a website and/or webshop. In laymen’s terms: Google vs your own search engine.
The confusion stems from one of the main benefits of both SEO and on-site search: they increase conversion by optimizing (CRO). For SEO this means that with an increase in traffic to a website, more visitors translates into more sales, which ultimately means more conversion.
Optimized on-site search makes products and content within a website more findable and improves UX: which ultimately also creates an increase in conversion. So yes, in both cases you’re talking about a search engine and optimizing it to grow your conversion rate, but you’re talking about two different search engines & CRO processes. In laymen’s terms: Google vs your own search engine.
On-site search vs on-site SEO
To create even more confusion: there is also something called on-site SEO. The term, also known as on-page SEO, is the practice of optimizing elements (within content and HTML code) on a website, in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic from web search engines, making ‘original’ SEO also known as off-site SEO.
On-site Spotler Activate Search: optimized by and for you
On-site search, within a website and/or shop, is exactly what we do at Spotler: and really, it has got nothing to do with SEO. When using an optimized on-site search engine, your visitors will find what they’re looking for within an instant. That’s what Spotler Activate Search does: we give our (and your) users ultimate speed: relevant results to a query within milliseconds, even when you have over 100K of products within your webshop.
Query results given by our search engine are more relevant than when using a default (e-commerce platform) search engine (or one that isn’t optimized). As a webshop owner, after you’ve implemented Spotler Activate Search, you can also use it as an (extra) marketing tool, as the results to a query will come as you please: you can influence the outcome, with our extended filtering, sorting and promotional options.
For example, you sell two types of trainers; Nike and Adidas. You’ve got a sale on Nike, so you would want this brand to rank higher within your results when visitors search for trainers, wouldn’t you? With Spotler Activate Search you can make that happen. Visitors will always find what they are looking for – in this case, trainers- but you are in control of what they see first/on top – Nike-. You can also link everything up with your favourite Analytics tool and see extensive search statistics, that help you understand your customers’ needs better (things like zero-result queries, what are visitors searching for, but not finding, because you don’t sell it?).
Why would I need optimized on-site search?
Why would you bother with optimized on-site search? From years of experience and data from our 700+ customers, we know that searching visitors find more, buy up to 5 times more, lookup more pages, stay on your website longer, have a higher order value and come back more often. Optimized site search helps make your customers happier. And also, it increases your conversion rate. One of our customers (Intersport Twinsport – type in any query to see Spotler Activate Search in action) increased their conversion rate with nearly 400% after implementing our solution a few years ago. Obviously, such a massive increase doesn’t happen to everyone, but it is a given that after the implementation of an optimized on-site search engine, your conversion rate and revenue will increase. On average, our customers have an increase of 50%+ in their conversion rate.
Book a personal demo
Curious about what search optimisation and our software Spotler Activate Search can add to your business? Book a demo and get inspired!
