Site Search: Over 20% of our Home Page Clicks Come from One Feature
We signed up for Hotjar and conducted heatmap testing on our homepage. It’s a comprehensive home page with numerous sections, elements, and pieces of information. Our goal isn’t to confuse people – it’s to provide an organized page where visitors can find whatever they’re seeking.
But they’re not finding it!
How do we know? Over 20% of all engagement on our homepage comes directly from our search bar. Visitors arrive, skip the carefully crafted sections, and go straight to the one element that gives them control: the search function.
Upon analyzing the rest of the page, we found that visitors rarely scrolled further or interacted significantly with the content. The only other high-engagement area was the footer—often a signal that users are looking for basic navigation links or contact information after failing to locate what they need above the fold.
That single data point was eye-opening. It suggested that while our navigation and layout might be well-structured from our internal perspective, users preferred to bypass it entirely in favor of typing what they wanted.
This is one of the most common UX truths: users don’t want to think about how you’ve organized your content. They want to find it, fast.
The Power of a Purpose-Built Internal Search Engine
To improve this experience, we implemented SearchWP as our internal search solution. It provides a robust autosuggest mechanism, intelligent weighting, and detailed reporting on what users are searching for. Unlike WordPress’s default search, which is notoriously limited to post content and titles, SearchWP lets us index custom fields, taxonomies, PDFs, and even shortcode content.
That means when someone searches for ad optimization or CRM integration, they’re not just seeing a random list of blog posts—they’re seeing the most relevant resources, tools, and definitions across our entire site.
The autosuggest feature has also proven invaluable. Instant feedback encourages users to refine or complete their queries, much like the experience they expect from Google. Combined with analytics on the top search terms, we now have a clear window into what users care about most. Often, those searches reveal gaps in our content strategy—topics we haven’t covered yet but should have.
Internal search doesn’t just improve usability—it directly impacts business outcomes. When visitors can quickly find what they want, they stay longer, view more pages, and are more likely to convert. In fact, studies have shown that visitors who use on-site search are two to three times more likely to take a conversion action compared to those who only use navigation menus.
From a marketing standpoint, internal search data is pure gold. It provides real-time insight into customer intent—what they’re curious about, what problems they’re trying to solve, and what language they use to describe those needs. That data can inform not just your content strategy, but also your SEO keywords, ad copy, and even product positioning.
Analyzing Internal Search Requests with Google Analytics
If your analytics platform supports it, integrating site search tracking can transform visitor behavior into actionable insight. GA4 doesn’t have a built-in Site Search setting. Instead, search activity is tracked as an event called view_search_results. To capture this event, you must ensure your internal search URLs include a query parameter (for example, ?s= or ?q=), and that GA4 is configured to recognize it automatically.
Here’s how to enable it:
- Verify your search URL structure. Visit your website, perform a search, and note the query parameter. Most WordPress sites use
?s=keyword, while some custom sites might use?q=keywordor /search/keyword/. GA4 relies on that query parameter to populate search term data. - Configure Enhanced Measurement in GA4. In your GA4 property, go to Admin → Data Streams → Web Stream Details and make sure Enhanced Measurement is turned on. Within those options, toggle on Site Search. GA4 will attempt to detect search terms automatically by looking for standard parameters, such as q, s, search, or query. If your site uses a custom parameter, you can add it manually.
- Validate the event in Realtime Reports. After performing a few searches on your site, open Reports → Realtime in GA4. Look for the event view_search_results. If it appears with your test keyword, tracking is working.
- Analyze search behavior. GA4 automatically populates the search_term dimension from this event. You can view it under Reports → Engagement → Events → View Search Results or by creating an Exploration report that breaks down search terms, engagement time, and conversion outcomes.
Once this data begins accumulating, you’ll quickly identify what visitors are seeking most frequently—and where you may have content gaps. Over time, these insights form a map of user intent across your site: the words people use, the topics they expect you to cover, and the content they can’t find. That knowledge is invaluable for shaping your editorial calendar, SEO strategy, and sales enablement content alike.
The Role of Search in a Content-Heavy Site
For companies that publish regularly, a strong internal search engine isn’t just a convenience—it’s a necessity. As your content library grows, even the best-organized navigation begins to buckle under its own weight. Tags, categories, and menus can only do so much before users feel lost.
A high-performance search experience acts as a dynamic guide, adjusting in real time to user behavior. It ensures that your most relevant and valuable assets remain discoverable long after they’ve been published.
If you’re using WordPress, tools like SearchWP can transform your site’s usability without requiring a complete redesign. Each provides advanced indexing, relevance tuning, and modern features like typo tolerance and fuzzy matching—small details that can make a big difference in retention and satisfaction.
Conclusion
Regardless of how well your site is designed or how intuitive your navigation appears, visitors want autonomy. They prefer to take control of their experience, and an excellent internal search mechanism gives them precisely that.
If you’re not ready for a complete search-as-a-service platform, at least enable internal search tracking within your analytics. Watch the data closely—it will tell you what your audience wants, where your content falls short, and how you can serve them better.
In the long run, internal search isn’t just a UX feature. It’s a content intelligence system that reveals the difference between what you publish and what your audience truly needs.
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