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      What Is Site Search Analytics?

      Site search analytics is, at its simplest, the analysis of the search queries entered by users of a specific search system (see Figure 2-1 and Figure 2-2). What did they search? What do their searches tell you about them and their needs? How did their searches go? Does their experience suggest fixes or improvements to your site? Or does it raise follow-up questions to pursue through other forms of user research?

      Note that in this book, we’re exploring the searching performed on a Web site or intranet. We are not covering how people search the entire Web using Google or another search engine. There are certainly parallels, but as you’ll see in the table in Figure 2-3, they’re not the same; Referral Queries of the Michigan State University site came from Web search engines like Google; Local Queries were executed on MSU’s own search engine.

      Figure 2-1. In SSA, you can analyze queries, like these frequent queries of the AIGA.org site, as reported by Google Analytics...

      Figure 2-2. ...to learn about what your users want from your sites and your organizations.

      Figure 2-3. Rich Wiggins of Michigan State University assembled, categorized, and even color-coded the most frequent queries from the open Web versus those generated locally to illustrate their differences.

      Unlike people searching the Web, your site’s searchers typically have more specific needs. They also may be familiar with your organization, its products, and its content—after all, they had to find their way to your site in order to use its search system. So the knowledge you’ll glean from SSA will be a bit different than (and complementary to) what you’ll learn from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Consider this analogy: if people searching the Web are essentially the leads you want to attract, people searching your site are the customers you hope to retain.