In a recent study conducted in April 2006, WebSideStory found that 4 percent of all unique search queries comprised about 50 percent of all searches on a web site. For e-commerce sites, the figure dropped to just 2 percent of all unique queries.

The study was based on examination of 34 million search phrases on more than 40 web sites using WebSideStory Search.

This means that outside of your navigation structure, you can still influence your visitors by optimizing your site search results. Harvesting the keyword list from your on-site search tool is very important because your visitors are telling you what they want, in their own words.

Other site search metrics:

• Visitors who use the site search application on a web site are nearly three times as likely to convert than the average site visitor.
• One and two-word queries comprise 83 percent of all site searches. Among e-commerce sites, this measure rose to 91 percent.
• Nearly 12 percent of all site searches led to zero results. Among e-commerce sites, this figure was 8.5 percent.

Download the whitepaper: The Other Search.