Google Custom Search Options

[MonicaOConnor]

Hey there,

I was wondering if anyone here in the community has experience using Google's Custom Search options on your site. We are thinking that it might be a solution for our site simply because we have to identify our search terms individually by product, which would take us a very long time to do. The custom search seems to use meta data as the parameters for search, which would be ideal.

I was just wondering if anyone had any insights as to how this might have affected your site's performance and customer experience. Our clients are not the best when it comes to technology, and from what I can see, this might be confusing for them, just because the results look like an actual Google SERP. I am not sure if that is something that can be customized either.

Any input would be appreciated.

[RyanPurkey]

Google Custom Search has quite a few customization features, to the point where you should be able to make it look exactly like other pages on your site. See: https://www.google.com/work/search/products/gss.html, and, "Match the look and feel of search results to your website by using your own logo and color scheme." For example.  These options come via their paid solution, but could be worth it from a usability and CRO aspect if it makes navigating and purchasing easier.

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Hi Monica,

Long time ago we used to have the custom search engines by Google to make sure we could serve the users with customized search results. You can change most of the lay-out, and what you could do (it's not the most beautiful option though) embed the results within an iframe on a specific page within your site so it completely embodies the look and feel.

[donford]

Yep, we use it on our manufacturing site. (ref link).

In our case we opted for the paid version for customization. It actually doesn't get used as much as I would have hoped but does provide some insight as to what people are looking for via the Google analytic tie-in.

I kind of feel like Google is sooooo good at returning results that most people would rather just go back to Google and re-search than spend time browsing on particular site for X info or items.

For a small site such as the one listed above it is more of an additional tool than an actual data collection source. I could see it being VERY useful if you have a network of sites or multiple sub-domains for like colleges or governments.

[MonicaOConnor]

Thanks for the feedback. Our search function gets used a lot. Mostly by returning electrical contractors who just land on the home page. We have a ton of parts on our site, whereas our main competition doesn't. Usually someone looking for a part in Google will find us rather quickly. Our platform gives us a list of search terms in site and their conversions. Although it would be helpful to have all of that data in one place.

Does the search only return results from your site or is there a possibility of search results showing that go to other sites?

[donford]

You can define what sites results are returned. Which is why I said I would be great for domains with sub-domains. Its been awhile but I think you have to upgrade to paid to turn off Google ads from showing up. There was some reason besides the "Custom Look" which moved us to paying for it.

It is super easy to install, you can make a blank page on your site and use the free version and see how you like it. We did this before going to paid.

Hope that helps Monica,

Don