SearchStax Site Search solution is engineered to give marketers the agility they need to optimize site search outcomes. Get full visibility into search analytics and make real-time changes with one click.
SearchStax Managed Search service automates, manages and scales hosted Solr infrastructure in public or private clouds. Free up developers for value-added tasks and reduce costs with fewer incidents.
“SearchStax gave us the support and flexibility during implementation that I really wasn’t used to. Plus, the analytics suite is powerful and helps us track the improvements we’ve made to search relevancy.”
Josh Isaak
Associate Vice President of Web Development and Content Strategies
Grand Valley State University’s website is essential for prospective and current students, faculty and staff — and search is used by nearly 40% of web visitors accounting for more than 100,000 search requests per month. As part of its commitment to student success, GVSU maintains a digital experience that serves this diverse audience across a complex and content-rich ecosystem.
Grand Valley State University (GVSU) is a public institution in Allendale, Michigan, with a total enrollment of over 22,000 students. Offering 100 undergraduate degrees and 45 graduate degree programs, GVSU’s mission is “preparing globally-minded citizens for the future they face and the community they shape.”
GVSU wanted to unlock the value from site search by focusing on how to improve their search experience while still integrating with their existing digital experience platform. After evaluating other software alternatives, GVSU selected SearchStax Site Search.
GVSU had been using Squiz Funnelback for the search function on their homegrown content management system. Because of the high cost of the Funnelback license and a lack of utilization of the product, the team started looking for alternatives when their contract was due for renewal this year.
Based on the team’s technical background as developers and with their previous experience with Solr, they were pleased to discover that underlying technology for Site Search was based on Solr. GVSU also wanted a vendor who was focused on site search exclusively and did not want to migrate their custom homegrown website platform to a new digital experience platform (DXP).
By using SearchStax, the search results are contained on the GVSU website and not on a sub-domain that is hosted outside of the university’s website.
Given the urgency to replace their existing solution before the contract expired, GVSU needed a quick and effective implementation. Using the JavaScript packages and Search UI Kit that are included with SearchStax, GVSU was able to implement Site Search in less than two months. With the support and onboarding services provided by SearchStax, the transition was seamless, ensuring no disruption to the user experience.
Since implementing SearchStax, GVSU has seen their search click-through rate improve dramatically, rising from 35% to over 52%. This nearly 50% increase in CTR indicates that users are finding more relevant and accurate results, leading to faster content discovery and overall better user satisfaction. This improvement is a direct result of GVSU’s marketing team leveraging SearchStax’s powerful tools to fine-tune the search experience.
For example, the Marketing team has added more than 200 Promotions, which include the most frequent searches such as “calendar,” “athletics,” “housing” and “cost”. There are critical services and resources for the community, and with the promoted content pushed to the top of the search results, users are able to more quickly find that content they’re seeking. These targeted promotions made key content more discoverable, reducing frustration for visitors who would otherwise have to sift through less relevant results.
Another powerful feature GVSU uses to improve search relevance is synonyms. They initially used the Synonyms feature to add shortcuts for building names and other internally popular abbreviations, and are regularly adding new synonyms for search terms uncovered in the No Results analytics. In this way, the team ensures that searches would return accurate results even if visitors used alternative phrasing or erroneous spelling.
For example, “CAC” now accurately points to results for “Alexander Calder Fine Arts Center,” and “bio” is synonymous with “biology” and “biochem” helping visitors to easily find the content they are looking for.
As a result, the Average Click Position (another Analytics Dashboard component) has improved to 2.5 which means that most visitors are clicking on content within the first three search results. An Average Click Position under three is considered excellent, demonstrating that GVSU’s search results are relevant and efficient at connecting website visitors to the information they want.
One of the biggest operational benefits GVSU realized with SearchStax Site Search is the ability to make real-time updates to their search experience without relying on developers. The marketing team is now empowered to respond quickly to emerging needs, whether adjusting search terms, promoting new content, or refining search results based on current trends in search behavior. This agility allows the GVSU marketing team to stay ahead of user expectations and maintain a seamless digital experience
Site Search
Custom
North America
Higher Education
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