What are visitors searching for on your website? Watch this quick video to learn how to set up Site Search tracking in Google Analytics. Site Search makes it easy to track search activity on your site.

In the video we show you how to:

• Set up Site Search for a web property connected to your Google Analytics account
• Understand which query parameters you’re using, and apply them to your Site Search setup
• View the resulting search metrics, including visits with search, total unique searches, specific search terms (what web visitors are searching for), and search depth

Tracking on-site search terms is surprisingly easy! All you’ll need to get started is a Google Analytics account and a search box on your site.

What are visitors searching for on your site?

On-site search is one of the things we scan for with our free Google Analytics audit tool. Many online businesses forget to add this to their Google Analytics setup, focusing instead on external search data such as that from Google AdWords (or ignoring search activity altogether!), but this is a mistake.

Capturing on-site search terms is essential for any online business that that is serious about growth. Understanding what web visitors are searching for – and how that leads to deep engagement with your site or app – can help you improve site UX (user experience), develop product offerings which your customers are already hungry for, and get a higher ROI from product marketing campaigns and ad spend.

For more details on the Site Search feature and how to identify search query parameters, check out the Google Analytics help guide.

Still have questions? The Littledata team is always here to help. You can contact us directly in the app, or feel free to connect with our Google Analytics consultants for larger projects.

Hint: Use search-related benchmarks to find out how your on-site search traffic compares with other sites in your industry and location. The Littledata app includes analytics benchmarks to make this as easy as possible. For example, you can compare usage of internal search on your website against internal search usage on all websites. Once you’ve set up Site Search, you will automatically be able to see relevant search-related benchmarks in your Littledata dashboard.