Just Add Search
By Jon Thomas   ©2004 All Rights Reserved

A September 2000 study by Jupiter Research found that 68% of surfers say the top reason they leave Web sites is because they can't find needed information. We all know surfers are incredibly impatient. I myself often have little patience for the sometimes endless series of menus and Web pages many sites present. There's a way to cut to the chase, though.

That's right: search boxes. I'm always relieved when I find one and recently I've even found myself looking for one as soon as I arrive at the site. If I can't find one, I may move onto the next site result at Google (my favorite Internet search engine). In the past, only webmasters with programming knowledge could setup search engines for their Web sites. However, there's now a small array of free interal search engine services - and there's no excuse even for small sites to go on without one. I'm going to show you Atomz Search, probably the best service available of its type. Atomz allows full customization of its search pages, includes no ads, and is still free. (You only pay if your Web site has more than 500 pages.) Atomz Search is so good, in fact, that we won't even bother to look at rival systems, like whatUseek's intraSearch (which does include ads) or ht://Dig (which is difficult to setup). Signing up with Atomz Search is relatively painless. You can visit their site at atomz.com, click Join, and give them your e-mail address. They'll e-mail you with a link back to their site, which confirms your account. Now you'll go through the typical signup procedure: agree to their service policy, enter your contact information, and answer a few marketing research questions. Now you're at the good part. You type in just a few site details - and bambo! Atomz Search is already indexing your Web site. You should first check the status of your index to insure there were no problems. It's also a good idea so you can see how Internet search engines might be indexing your Web site. Follow the HTML link to copy and paste the search box code onto your Web site. I highly recommend pasting it on every page, at the top where its most visible! Test it. Just like that, you've added search functionality to your site. If the statistics are true, your Web traffic should go up. But there's one benefit perhaps worth more than the search box itself: knowing just what your visitors are looking for! Atomz Search provides a list of all searches (just click on Reports), even ones which were unsuccessful. With this knowledge, you can adjust the content of your site to satisfy your visitors - and if yours is an e-commerce site, you can even track product trends! Go ahead - just add search!

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JON THOMAS is owner of SpiderDepot.com, a custom solutions service designed for novice webmasters that have encountered problems which HTML alone cannot solve.

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