Do You Have a Search Box?
So, I have come across a few sites recently that don't have a search box.
Or if they did, it was hidden in an obscure place.
Whether or not you have a search box doesn't directly affect ranking, but it is part of the overall user experience.
Particularly if you have a larger site, and a reader is looking for something specific.
If they have no way of searching for it, they will become frustrated and go elsewhere.
And ideally, the search box should be at the top of the homepage, on the right-hand side.
That is where most people would expect to see it.
Luckily, it's easy to add one.
Go to Appearance, then Widgets, then click the drop-down arrow next to Right Sidebar.
Next, click on the + sign, and search for Search!
Click to add it to your sidebar.
Now, if you have nothing else in your sidebar, then just click Update, and you're done.
But if you have other widgets, you will want to move your search bar above them, so it is at the top.
Click the up arrow, and then click update.
Head over to your site to test its working, and that's it!
Recent Comments
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A search box not only is good to help your readers to find a post on your blog, it also help me to check if I already wrote a post with the keyword that I'm working on to write new content.
As I check a seed keyword on the search box, it will display all the post I have on the blog with that seed keyword, so I can work to create a new post.
It's a tool that I use now, before I start writing a new post.
Thank you Diane. This is valuable advice.
Thank you for your tutorial which shows us how simple it is to set up.
Best wishes,
Lesley
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Hi, Diane
I have a search box in the top menu and the footer menu of my guitar site.
If someone reads my entire article and they want to search for something else, they don't have to scroll back to the top of the page to access the search box.
Most people will land on your site from an organic search result (SERP) and the remainder will navigate there from an email campaign, a social post, directly from a bookmark, etc.
The search box is very seldom used by someone who navigates directly to your homepage from a bookmark or a search engine and then searches for a keyword, unless you are a big-authority site like Wikipedia, but it can still improve the user experience.
If you see "keyword - your site name" (for example: guitar neck - My Guitar Lair)
in your "views by page title and screen name results" in Google Analytics-4 (also available in other reports), someone has put that keyword in your site's search box. Therefore, the number of people that use your search box is directly trackable and quantifiable.
Frank 🎸