From BizWeb2000
I just filled another gaping hole at my website. In the process I found a great new marketing tool, and a slick way to learn "exactly" what my website visitors are looking for...
Through the last few years I've tried 3 or 4 different solutions to a nagging problem... how to let users easily search through my site.
Each time I'd try a new service, script or software program I'd run into a problem. Either the searching was too slow, the search engine results were lousy or it just plain didn't work.
Well I'm happy to report that I finally found a permanent solution. My guess is that it will be a great solution for many of you as well.
It is a slick, independently hosted search solution for corporations, small businesses, and individual web developers.... Atomz
With Atomz, absolutely anyone can quickly and easily add a powerful search engine to any Web site, and the service is free for sites with less than 500 pages. What's even better is it's fast! I got my own Atomz search engine 100% up and running in minutes.
Actually, to put the Atomz engine at your site, there's nothing to do but fill out a few forms, decide what areas you want your visitors to be able to search through and turn Atomz loose to index your pages. In seconds it spits out html code for you to add to your pages. You paste the code into any page you want a search form on, then upload the page to your site. Bingo. Done.
You now have a powerful search engine on your site and your visitors will love you for it! What's nice is that there are no annoying ad banners shown with your search results, just a small "Powered by Atomz.com" graphic.
But there's really much more to Atomz than a great site search engine. It holds a marketing value for savvy web marketers who really aim to please...
Now the Atomz fun starts...
As your visitors search your site, Atomz logs what they enter and then creates reports for you by day, week, and month. These reports let you understand what visitors are looking for on your site. You can use this information to improve your site or to further improve the search results for your visitors.
For example, the top 15 searches at my site the first week I had the Atomz search tool up were:
search engines
marketing plan
goto
jeeves
jim daniels
make money
direct email
domain registration
advertising
affiliate program
ebusiness
free publicity
marketing
shania twain
classified
So what does this report tell me? Well for starters, the top four search words show me that my articles on search engines and marketing maintenance have brought lots of visitors to my site. That's still something that lots of web marketers are interested in learning about so I'll write more about it!
Next, many of the terms searched on were exact matches to the keywords I bid on at goto.com. Specifically, "make money" and "direct email" are keywords I just increased the bids on at goto. It was nice to see those efforts bring immediate visitors. It's also great to give these surfers a quick search tool so that can find exactly what they're looking for at my site as soon as they get there.
Next, the demand for information on domain registration shows that lots of newbies are still coming into my site. It's nice to be able to get them right to my report on "how to select and register a domain name for your business", which leads them to my domain name wizard. Hey, this Atomz search tool is a great little marketing tool for my domain registration services!
As I work my way down the list I not only learn what my visitors are searching for, I learn what my site is lacking. Over time, these reports will be invaluable to me and my efforts to help my website visitors and BizWeb eGazette subscribers who return to my site.
Lastly, I learned one more thing from my Atomz reports... I may need to do a little research on this Shania Twain person. ;-)
To learn more about Atomz and get your own free search engine, visit http://atomz.com/design