Today, we talk about the site search report in Google Analytics.
BEHAVIOR: What did a visitor do on our website?
Well, it turns out that they could have done a lot of things, and we can track most of them in Google Analytics.
One of the basic things to track is page views. And we can actually learn a lot from knowing which pages are being viewed, and how often.
For more advance tracking of visitors' activities and behavior, we'll need to do more configuration on Google Analytics.
SITE SEARCH: Your search box is a window into your users deepest needs.
The site search report in Google Analytics shows you what your visitors are searching for on your website. It reports when a visitor uses your website search bar to look for information.
To enable the site search report in Google Analytics, you'll need to identify the search parameter. You can find this by looking at the URL when a search query is entered.
Here's an example. If someone uses the search bar on this website (to search for “google analytics”), this will be the URL:
https://www.measureu.com/?s=google+analytics
The ‘s' is the search parameter.
Once you've identified the search parameter, you'll need to train Google Analytics to recognize this query string. That is, Google Analytics need to know that ‘s' is the search engine. Once Google Analytics recognize it in the URL, the site search report is enabled.
Intermediate. The site search report in Google Analytics needs some configuration to set up. In most cases, this report is fairly easy to set up. But if your website search parameter is not as clear cut (without a query string), then you'll probably need to engage the help of a Google-authorized consultant.
What's there to lose? If you have a search engine on your website, go ahead. Set up the site search report in Google Analytics. There's a lot to gain from knowing what your visitors are looking for.
Want to know more about the Periodic Table of Google Analytics? Visit here for more information.