Higher Ed Site Search Guide
Sara Kelzer
Mom | INFP-T | Senior AE | GTM, Sales Enablement & Efficiencies | I Help Higher Ed with AI-Powered Site Search, 43% of Visitors go Immediately to Search
Here's a few site search scenarios and solves that I've ran across while here at Cludo. Feel free to modify for your own search or reach out to me if you're interested in checking out Cludo! I'll be adding on as I hear 'em or as people comment. Let me know if there's an issue with your search experience and I'll be happy to try and figure out a solution <3 Sara
Search Scenario #1: Current Search Doesn't Include All Content
One overlooked aspect to having a well functioning site search in higher education is the multiple different sites on different tech stacks. Even the smallest of schools will generally have at least an academic site and an athletics site. Depending on the school, athletics might be an very important recruitment tool. So including this content in your global search could be beneficial for your campus' recruitment strategy.
Schools also have multiple search experiences - calendars, event pages, blogs, catalog all which live in different locations, have different designs, and overall can be a confusing experience for visitors.
The limitations of some search solutions (like built-in CMS solutions) can make it impossible to bridge the gap between these search experiences and tech stacks.
Cludo Solve #1: We're CMS Agnostic
Cludo can index content across 1) tech stacks, 2) subdomains/domains, 3) authenticated content, 4) different files types, and you can 5) push URLs via API (think databases that aren't crawlable) so that all your content is findable in one search solution.
Search Scenario #2: Search Doesn't Consider Business Needs
A well functioning site search is dependent on what your campus' priorities are and then being able to translate and manually adjust those levels within your site search algorithm. With CMS solutions there's little to no ability to make these adjustments.
Cludo Solve #2: Customized Search Algorithm
Here's an example of how Cludo could match a school's priority of using their site as a marketing resource by prioritizing prospective student content over internal audience content.
In Cludo this is called Boostings:
<100%, decrease ranking / downboost
=100%, no change in ranking / neutral
>100%, increase ranking / upboost
Example:
URL Value: /undergraduate/ - boost 300%
URL Value: /graduate/ - boost 250%
URL Value: /programs/ - boost 200%
URL Value: /academics/ – boost 150%
URL Value: /departments/ – boost 90%
URL Value: /news/ - boost 90%
URL Value: /policies/ - boost 50%
Search Scenario #3: Search is Slooooow
People want fast results. 53% of mobile visitors abandon a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, and 79% of visitors will not return to a poorly performing website. A 2-second delay in load time resulted in abandonment rates of up to 87%.
Cludo Solve #3: We're Fast!
Our solution does all the computing outside of your website and your website hosting, and for that reason, we don’t affect the performance of the website negatively. Rather we increase the website performance, especially in instances when using a CMS built-in search or on-prem search - we take the load off your server. Cludo query response times average sub 200 milliseconds and in Google's book that is an instant response.
Search Scenario #4: Current Search Doesn't Look or Feel on Brand
People want to feel like the search is apart of your website AND leadership wants it to too!
Cludo Solve #4: We Offer Design Flexibility
There are a few of options available for Cludo implementation that you or Cludo can adjust to look and feel like part of your website. The designs are flexible at Cludo, so we can meet you where you're at.
Option 1: Search Experience Templates - styled templates that are configurable from within MyCludo and adopt the existing styling rules from the website + some low code options to adjust the UI.
Option 2: Custom Design with Cludo's Professional Services - our professional services team will use assets and styling that the customer defines (branding guidelines, logos, libraries, etc.) to customize a frontend experience that matches your business needs and branding.
Option 3: React Components Cludo Developer Experience
Option 4: REST APIs - Our collection of REST APIs allow developers to create fully custom search solutions in any code environment. The APIs go beyond the search UI and provide endpoints for manipulating data and configurations in the backend.
Search Scenario #5: Different Search Intent Per Visitor
Higher Ed's site has many audiences looking for different types of content with same or similar keywords or phrases.
Example #1:
1st Searcher: "Cybersecurity" looking for program pages
2nd Searcher: "Cybersecurity" looking for privacy and data policies
Example #2:
1st Searcher: "Marketing" looking for program pages
2nd Searcher: "Marketing" looking for university marketing
Cludo Solve #5: Options to Add Top-Level Categories
Since different visitors have different intents, a search experience that provides filters to help users find what they are looking for is helpful. Category facets are typically set up as fields related to a specific type of content. Fields can be easily configured within the MyCludo and then category facets/filters can be implemented with the search UI.
Higher Ed Top-Level Category Examples:
Pages, People, Events, Programs, Courses, News, Policies, Athletics, Documents
filters: {"PageType": ["News"]}
Search Scenario #6: Limited Contextual Information
With lots of content, priorities, departments, programs, events, etc. Higher Ed faces issues with content that looks and feels the same. If content has similar titles, descriptions, URLs, images - the results page can seem like a long unhelpful list.
Cludo Solve #6: Custom Display Fields
If you opt to move forward with Cludo Custom Design, React, or API implementations with Cludo, you'll be able to create custom display fields in addition to the out-of-the box display fields (Title, Description, URL, and/or Image).
By providing contextual clues with custom display fields, results can be more distinguishable for the end user.
Examples:
Top Level Category: Pages
Display Fields: Title, URL, Description, Image, Breadcrumbs
Top Level Category: People
Display Fields: Name, Title, Department, Phone, Email
Top Level Category: Events
Display Fields: Title, Date, Time Location, Event Type
Top Level Category: Programs
Display Fields: Program Name, Degree Level, Delivery Type, Careers
Top Level Category: News
Display Fields: Title, URL, Description, Image, Date, Breadcrumbs
Top Level Category: Policies
Display Fields: Title, URL, Description, Policy Number, Date, Department
Top Level Category: Athletics
Display Fields: Sports, Breadcrumbs
Top Level Category: Documents
Display Fields: ppt, word, pdf, xls
Search Scenario #7: Content Problem not Search Problem
With higher education mostly being decentralized content creation as well as the sheer volume of higher ed online content - this creates a perfect mess and presents findability issues. This exasperated when content isn't tagged properly.
Cludo Solve #7: Page Ranking
While centrally you might not have control over the decentralized content and therefore properly tagging content, you do have control over the global site search and can manually adjust search rankings based on leadership asks or overarching campus priorities.
Examples:
Search Terms: Accessibility, Accommodations, Disability Services
Page Ranking #1: www.example.edu/accessibility
Example #2:
Search Terms: Acceptance Rate, Acceptance, Admissions Information, Admissions Requirements
Page Ranking #1: undergrad.example.edu/admissions
Example #3:
Search Terms: Academic Calendar, School Calendar, *Calendar*, *Exam Schedule, Final Exams*
Page Ranking #1: academic.example.edu/calendar
领英推荐
Search Scenario #8: Hard to Find Relevant Events
Often times schools will have tons of historical content especially relating to past events that will continue to be hosted online as well as new events will be promoted in the future.
However, when someone is searching on your site, they will be more than likely looking for an event they can participate in.
Example:
If a school has 15 years of past MLK day celebrations on their site but a visitor wants to find the upcoming event but only past events show up in results.
Cludo Solve #8: Date Freshness
Cludo can help solve this problem by baking in date freshness within the search algorithm found under "Boostings" within the MyCludo platform. This allows for your school to prioritize events that are 1 day, 1 month, or 6 months around the time the search is performed. In order for this configuration to be made, your content will need to have a machine readable lastmod date as described within W3C Date and Time Formats.
YYYY-MM-DD
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mmTZD
Example of Date Freshness Configuration:
Search Scenario #9: Indexing Lag
Since schools continuously are promoting, creating and publishing new content and events, being at the whim of re-indexing at an unknown time and date aren't acceptable. Especially for /news/ sections of the website when content is almost consistently being publishes.
Cludo Solve #9: Immediate Indexing
Cludo has multiple ways to quickly index your content 1) update content tool 2) smart crawling 3) WP plugin.
Search Scenario #10: Removing Content from Index
There are many scenarios that central web teams need to remove content from their site search results.
Whether that's because of duplicate content, content that doesn't' align with central business needs or guidelines, or removing out-of-date or irrelevant results.
Example #1:
A department publishes content that isn't inline with your campus guidelines and you'd like to remove this content from your local search.
Example #2:
Multiple years worth of student handbooks and catalogs, but you'd only like the current year's handbook and catalog to show in results.
Cludo Solve #10: Exclusions
You're able to exclude out certain directories or folders within your site search based on URL structure, making it easy to remove out-of-date content or content that's not inline with your campus policies.
Search Scenario #11: Visitors aren't finding Specifically Curated Content
Sometimes schools are proactively curating content landing pages to answer student's most pressing questions. They create these beautiful audience-specific resources and yet students still call, chat, or come in-person to find out this information when it's easily found online.
Cludo Solve #11: Instant Suggestions
These are manually configurable search terms that you can provide your visitor pre-search to help them identify what they are looking for. The keyword suggestions for searchers is presented after 1-click to the search bar.
Example Set #1*:
*Instant suggestions credit: Shad Jensen, Boise State University
Example Set #2:
Search Scenario #12: Bogged Down with Top of the Funnel Questions
"We're bringing in a lot of leads and want to cut down some of the top of the funnel and focus in on the mid to lower funnel. For example, a lot of the team gets bogged down with questions from international students asking for things that they could probably find on the website. So, this team is looking for an AI chatbot."
Top of Funnel Q&A:
1) What is the interview process like?
2) Am I likely to get in?
3) What's the visa process like?
4) How long does the visa process take?
Example: a student quit their job in India, but didn't get approval for their visa, and then not able to make it in time to start orientation and then they had to defer them and they are out of a job for that period.
Cludo Solve #12: Admissions-focused Q&A Chat and Assistant
Some metrics from other chatbot users out there:
Search Scenario #13: Time-Sensitive Information
Occasionally there's time-sensitive information that students, parents, and others within your community need further details on. While your website might have content, the information is buried and hard to find during these critical times so they call in or leave your site to find the correct information.
Cludo Solve #13: Banners
Cludo offers a way to place a banner at the top of the results page to highlight the best information. You're able to use multiple words or query phrases to promote content during a specific time frame. Cludo will turn on and off the banner based on your specifications.
Example Spring Banners
Search Scenario #14: Global vs. Individual Site Search
"A dream would be to have a search that can be on the individual site that someone could search both all of the school and just specifically the individual site and then possibly academics."
Cludo Solve #14: Multiple Crawling and Design Options
Depending on your desired indexing and filter options Cludo has many ways to include and exclude content and options to provide filters. So having a way to search both the entire digital presence and
filters: {"PageType": ["college of sciences"]}
Search Scenario #15: Searching Content Behind Log In
Lots of schools have or are in the process of providing separate online experiences for students, staff, faculty vs. prospective students. Both audiences needing self-service content findability but not able to use the same site search tooling to provide exceptional user experience.
Cludo Solve #15: IP Whitelist, Basic Authentication, Relay Proxy Server
Cludo is able to crawl behind log-in credentials by either whitelisting our crawler IP, providing a username and password for our crawlers to access information or utilizing a secure relay proxy server to access content.
Search Scenario #16: Saved Deadlinks on People's Bookmarks
When school's go to redesign often times pages will be taken down, combined or the taxonomy switched up all together. Some internal staff, faculty and students might have saved some of their favorite go to links. In the process of launching the new structure, these saved favorite links in people's bookmarks have been broken.
Cludo Solve #16: Intelligent 404
Cludo offers a way to help visitors find the new location of related content with our intelligent 404 page. This ingests the URL and spits out a search result on the 404 page to allow for visitors to find the right new location. Cludo also offers a metric tracking those frequently visited 404 pages. Often times if this is a deadlink living on your site or intranet, this metric helps find the origin so it can be properly updated.
Search Scenario #17: IT Help
For IT teams having a chatbot that is able to cut down he number of calls, emails, and live chats and help field easy-to-answer questions quickly can help improve user experience. Especially when a student is working overtime and trying to complete a project late night and need IT help ASAP.
Cludo Solve #17: Chat Q&A + Assistant
Cludo's Chat Q&A can be utilized to only index and answer questions that are related to the ITS knowledge base and are available 24/7. Making it useful for current students to help themselves and troubleshoot and fix issues with out a representative.
Search Scenario #18: Directory Search
Many institutions like the idea of indexing databases ex: people directory but because the content isn't crawlable, it makes it difficult or impossible to pull in that information into their site search.
Cludo Solve #18: Indexing Flexibility
With Cludo you're able to index beyond crawling data and this is especially helpful for data that lives within a database like people or department directories. Being able to index this content within the main search helps visitors find where to go or people to contact easily.
Search Scenario #19: Developer Only
Often times site search solutions are heavy dev, heavy upkeep and impossible for higher ed to maintain.
Cludo Solve #19: Low Code
Cludo is built for dev, marketing, and digital strategist alike - meaning it's low or no code configurations that make it easy to modify search results based on your business needs.
Thanks for sticking with me till this point. I'll be updating this article on an ongoing basis. Stay tuned!
HR Professional | Bridging People & Business | Talent Acquisition Expert | Driving Growth & Engagement
10 个月Insightful and love the presentation of a real scenario or pain point in Higher Ed and how exactly Cludo solves for that ??
Senior Marketing Strategist at Cludo | Crafting Content & Conversions | Scrappy Marketer ?
10 个月Passionate ? Informative ? Approachable ? So impressed by this article, Sara. Can't wait to see what other tips and tricks you share in the future!
Enterprise Customer Success Manager
10 个月Great work! You are so passionate about higher ed search and it shows every day, this will be so helpful to many.
Podcaster???, Marketer, Storyteller, Content Creator, Dad ????????
10 个月??