Relevance

Improve Relevance Through Ineffective Searches

Sifting through a list of ineffective searches may seem intimidating, but with Cludo you can increase search relevance and deliver content users need.


When someone conducts a search on your site, it means they aren’t finding what they need. But what happens when there are no relevant results for their search? 

Searches that result in low to no clicks are what we call ineffective searches. When utilized, the ineffective search tool is an efficient way to improve your site relevance

Why should I pay attention to ineffective searches? 

Much like searches without results, ineffective searches point out gaps in your content. When these gaps are neglected, the lack of relevant search results may cause users to leave your site. To avoid that happening, take advantage of your ineffective search analytics!  

The ineffective search tool displays each result in order of significance (the darker the flag, the sooner you should take action). This significance is determined by Cludo’s machine learning, taking the number of unique searches as well as the click-through rate (CTR) for each search result into account.

While you will want to pay attention to all of your ineffective searches, prioritize making changes to high significance searches for the greatest impact on your relevance.

Ready to address your ineffective searches and make your search results more relevant than ever? Try making one of the below changes.

Add content

One reason your users may be experiencing ineffective searches is because there is a major content gap on your website. Maybe you provide a service you didn’t find important for your customers, so you chose not to feature it on your site. Maybe there is a seasonal topic your users are searching for that doesn’t come up with any results at all.

If you’re experience a high search volume for those types of topics, it’s probably time to rethink how visible they are on your site. One way to make content easier to find is by adding it to your site navigation. If that service your users are frequently searching for is right there in your navigation, users won’t even need to search!

If adding a new section to your navigation isn’t the obvious option, consider adding a new page with fresh content related to the ineffective search.

Add a service or product offering

This is the big one, and a great example of the way search can impact your business even beyond your website performance. You may be experiencing ineffective searches because a lot of people are searching for a product or service they expect you to offer that you currently don’t.

If you only sell men’s shoes and you’re getting a high volume of ineffective searches for “kids shoes”, this may be the time to consider expanding your product offerings. If your tourism website is getting a high number of searches for a particular destination that you do not currently visit, it might be worth thinking about adding that as a tour. Not only will making these additions improve your search relevance, they could increase business as well.

Edit search results

Maybe you already have the content on your site, but your search engine is still not returning results for it. For example, your university may have lots of content on “commencement”, but students are consistently experiencing ineffective searches for the word “graduation.” This is a perfect opportunity for you to make some edits inside your actual search tool.

In Cludo, you have a few options on what type of action to take:

  • It can be as easy as creating a Synonym for each search term, meaning results for “graduation” will appear when “commencement” is searched.
  • If you want to skip a search results page altogether, you can add a Quicklink. When “commencement” is searched, your users will be taken right to your page on graduation.
  • Make a Banner! As commencement approaches, promote it at the top of your search results page as it’s inquired about.

Sifting through a lengthy list of ineffective searches may seem intimidating, but have no fear! With Cludo you’re only a few minutes away from increasing your search relevance and delivering the content your users need.

Ready to improve your relevance using Cludo? Try a platform demo today!

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