Delving into and analyzing search patterns on your website is a crucial aspect of comprehensive site analytics, yet it’s often undervalued by many website owners. Website search analytics offers invaluable insights into the search behaviors of your audience and how your site performs in search engine rankings. This guide will explore the essentials of search analytics, utilizing Google Analytics as our primary tool.We’ll examine two primary types of search: external search and internal search, both of which provide distinct information for site owners.External search pertains to the keywords users employ to find your site via search engines like Google. Internal search involves tracking the queries made by users within your site’s search functionality. For instance, platforms like WordPress and Drupal offer built-in search capabilities that can be logged through Google Analytics.Configuring internal search capabilities in Google Analytics necessitates some additional setup (which will be addressed later in this guide).By default, external search results that direct visitors to your site are visible in any Google Analytics account without additional configuration. Analyzing external search reports provides a clear understanding of how visitors reach your site. Essentially, if you’re receiving a high volume of visits for specific phrases, it’s likely you’re ranking well for those terms. 
Examining your external search keywords is quite straightforward, as they are displayed in a “Keywords” box on the standard Google Analytics dashboard. This box highlights the top five search terms driving traffic to your site through search engines. You can access a more detailed overview by clicking “view report” (or “view full report,” which serves the same purpose) at the bottom of the box.If the “Keywords” box is not visible, you can still access your Keywords report by navigating to Traffic Sources > Keywords in the left-hand navigation menu. 
Like many Google Analytics report pages, you’ll find a time/visits graph indicating the amount of traffic generated by search engine keywords over the past month. Below the graph, you’ll see a table of keywords from which you can extract more meaningful information.By default, this table displays 10 rows. 
What to Look ForPrimarily, it’s interesting to observe your most popular keywords. It’s helpful to analyze which search phrases are attracting visitors to your site.Are the keywords you’re seeing what you expected? Do you need additional keywords to rank well on your site? For example, if your site is about Sudoku puzzles, you’d expect to see words and phrases like “sudoku,” “sudoku puzzles,” and so on as the majority of the top search key phrases.However, you might also uncover other key phrases that people use that you hadn’t anticipated, such as “brain games” and “mental agility exercises,” which you can consider when creating additional content for your Sudoku site to improve the ranking of these keywords. This report serves as a valuable gauge of how your site appears to search engines. If you have unexpected phrases in your top results, you might want to ponder why they’re there.Does their presence have a positive impact on your site by attracting the targeted audience, or are they arriving by accident due to a vague keyword, leading to an ineffective engagement with your site’s content?Utilizing the Filter Keywords Feature to Identify TrendsIt’s essential to focus on trends, so it’s advisable to filter out certain results before diving deeper. For instance, you’ll encounter numerous results that have been used only once; these should be filtered out as a single use of a search term doesn’t truly reflect a trend.To filter out non-trending search terms, select a minimum number of page visits. This will vary based on your site’s traffic volume and the duration your website has been live (newer sites may not yet be highly visible in search engine results, hence limited data). Typically, a minimum of 10 visits is a good threshold.Once you’ve determined the minimum number of page visits, it’s time to filter. At the bottom left of the Keywords report page, there is a “Filter Keyword” option, alongside an “Advanced Filter” link. Click on the “Advanced Filter” link to expand a set of options for more refined reports.Select “Add new condition” from the dropdown menu, then choose “Visits” under Site Usage. 
After adding the new condition, you’ll see a conditional statement dropdown menu with options like “Less than,” “Less than or equal to,” “Greater than,” and more. In this menu, select “Greater than” and enter “10” in the input field beside it — our filter should now read “Visits Greater than 10.” Finally, click the “Apply Filter” button to filter your results. 
Explore these results to compare the number of visits from different phrases, gaining insight into what your site excels at. For instance, are visitors arriving via the keyword “apple” spending more time browsing than those arriving via “banana”? This might indicate that your site is more engaging for apple enthusiasts, allowing for strategic design changes to attract banana lovers or focus on apple enthusiasts to drive more traffic.Analyzing Bounce RateAnother crucial figure to consider is the bounce rate for search terms.Clicking on the Bounce Rate column heading will sort the table by this metric. 
A high bounce rate indicates that your site isn’t appealing to people searching for a particular term. If it should be, it’s time to investigate why.For example, if you have a high bounce rate for the term “chicken farming” yet you believe it’s a topic your audience would be interested in, click on the keyword with the high bounce rate (“chicken farming” in this case) to access a new screen with more detailed data about that term. 
On the Site Usage tab, clicking the “None” box will provide options for various metrics to explore for identifying trends, such as “Language,” “Continent,” “Browser,” and more. 
For the task of understanding why a particular term has a high bounce rate, examining the “Landing Page” metric can be insightful, as it shows which web pages visitors are leaving from.Noting New Visits StatsWhen exploring external search reports, you may notice that many Keyword metrics display predominantly new visits. This is reasonable, as returning visitors often access your site directly without using a search engine (e.g., via bookmarks or remembered URLs).Next, let’s discuss internal search reports; these involve search phrases used on your site’s native search feature. Internal search tracking provides deep insights into what users expect to find on your site and the effectiveness of your information architecture.Upon setting up internal search, you should be able to view what users have been typing into your search boxes.What Internal Search Reports RevealThe data obtained from internal search analytics essentially serves as a resource indicating what your visitors cannot find on your site. For instance, if you sell clothing and you have numerous searches for “pink ball gowns” but you don’t carry them, it might be worth considering offering pink ball gowns. If you receive many searches for pink ball gowns, but you have a link to your pink ball gowns category right on your navigation bar, then there may be an issue with your site navigation’s design and effectiveness.Configuring Internal Search AnalyticsTo set up site search reporting, navigate to Content > Site Search in Google Analytics’ left menu.When accessing this menu item, you’ll receive instructions for setting up your site search. As a quick example, we’ll look at setting up site search for a WordPress site. First, you need to determine what URL variable is used for the search feature on your site.Google Analytics refers to this as “Query Parameter.” The simplest way to determine your Query Parameter is by entering a search keyword into your site search and examining the resulting URL. In WordPress, a search using the built-in search feature typically sends you to a page like , indicating that the search term is passed in the URL as a URL variable called . In Drupal, the search result page’s URL appears as: This means that the URL variable is .Once you’ve identified this, click on “Edit” under the Website Profiles summary table, which can be found on the first screen of Google Analytics upon first login, or by clicking on “Analytics Settings” just below the Google Analytics logo. 
This will take you to the Profile Settings page for your site. Click “Edit” beside the Main Website Profile Information box heading.This will take you to the Edit Profile Information page. 
In the Edit Profile Information page, scroll down to the Site Search section and select the “Do Track Site Search” option; this will reveal more options. 
The only box you need to fill in is the “Query Parameter” option, which, in the case of WordPress’ built-in search, we’ve determined to be the URL variable of “s.” Enter that value and click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the page. 
Voilà! — your site search is now configured.Just give it some time to gather results.Viewing Internal Site Search ReportsTo view your Site Search reports, go to Content > Site Search. You’ll notice several new sections that may be unfamiliar if you haven’t set up Site Search before. 
Don’t be overwhelmed, as all the necessary information can be easily accessed from the Content > Site Search > Overview page.Additionally, Google has conveniently provided helpful links on this page to answer any questions you may have. By clicking on various sections of the Overview page, you can quickly gain useful insights into your internal site search. Let’s examine some of these report pages.Search Terms ReportOne of the simplest places to start gathering information is the Search Terms page. 
