Usability studies show us that more than half of all web users are search-dominant, meaning that they will go straight to the search box when they enter your site, rather than try to find information following your navigation links. They are not interested in looking around the site but rather in finding what they want as fast as possible.

That is why, if your site has a large number of pages or covers a wide variety of topics, we recommend that you set up a search engine for your site. There are several services that offer free search engines that allow your visitors to search your site. The two we have tried are FreeFind and Google. Both of them are free and worth a try.

Freefind is a great option, particularly because you can select your desired indexing frequency. This means that if you update your site weekly or even daily, you can instruct Freefind's spider to crawl your site with that same frequency, so that all your pages are indexed (added to the database) as often as you update your site.

Aside from that, you can index up to 3,000 average-size pages with your free account, which is more than enough for most websites. Also, Freefind automatically generates a site map for your site; a site map is a great tool to help your visitors navigate your site, and to quickly allow the search engines to pick up all your pages when they crawl your site.

Google also has a free feature that allows you to get a search engine for your site, which will give your visitors the option of searching the web or only your site. However, this feature has its drawbacks. The main one is that only pages that are already in Google's database will be displayed in the results, and you can't instruct Google to crawl your site at your desired frequency. Instead, you will have to wait until Google crawls the web (usually once a month) before more of your pages can be added to Google's database. Therefore, Google is a good option if most of your pages are already indexed and you don't update your site that often.

We recommend that you follow these guidelines when setting Search on your site:

Make the search function easily available from every page on your site.

Try to include a search box in the page itself, instead of just a text link that takes you to a search page. The search box shape is easily recognizable and users will find it much faster than a text link. If you don't want to use a search box in all your pages, use a search box on your homepage and a link to the search page from your interior pages.

Place the search box in a consistent an easy to find location across your site. Based on the observation of numerous important websites, the preferred location for the search box seems to be the top right corner of the page.

Try to make the search box wide enough (between 20 and 25 characters) to accommodate longer queries.

Label the search button next to the search box with the word "Search" (no need to get too fancy or creative with phrases like "Take me there" or "Go!". Keep it simple.)

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Finally, please note that installing search functionality is no excuse for designing a poor navigation architecture (don't forget the other half of your visitors, who are likely to follow links rather than search). Users want to know where they are within your website at all times, and like to find their way around easily. The best way to enable this is:

To have few but clear navigation options (no need to include links to all your pages from all your pages).

To group your navigation options by subject, and

To include a "breadcrumb trail" next to the top of the page, where you can show your visitors the complete path to the current page, starting with your homepage (for example: home -> archive -> June 03 -> Web Design Tips ).

About The Author
Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest, a collection of web design and Internet marketing tips and resources to help you design a better website and market it more effectively.

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