Custom-Search-Engine

Use two Search forms to increase the pageviews

We have been experimenting with the Google Custom Search Engine, and we had put two CSE on our blog. As you can see, we have placed one at the top and one at the footer of this blog.

We could see that the number of search almost tripled and the page views were four to five(fluctuating) times more than before.

This is because, when people read the entire article, they will reach to the end of the page. Now they can see the “Related Articles”. And if they do not want to read those things and want something else, then they obviously need to search for it, and showing a search form at the end of the blog reminds them to search for the things they want.

People are lazy and they will not always scroll up and do a search on your blog. They may just think that the information isn’t available on your blog. And its frustrating to search for the required article from any achieve page manually!

So a search form at the footer helps a lot.

Now what about the page views?

Google Custom search engine and most other search engines which you can put on your blog, has the feature to select the websites from where it should search for the keywords. So each time someone uses your Search engine, he is likely to visit some other article of your own blog. This will just repeat and result in the increase of your page views.

There are many other benefits:-

1. You can know, what people are searching.

2. Earn a bit of revenue(if you want– Optional).

3. Increase page views.

4. Very useful for visitors.

Now to add Google Custom Search Engine to your website, just follow this article- “Add Custom Search Engine to your wordpress blog easily“.

After adding the Google Custom Search Engine to your blog, make sure that your articles are indexed..

Watch this video to know more about indexing, in Google Custom Search Engine:

Having two Adsense for Search or Google Custom Search Engine on a single page is allowed. But having more than two forms is against TOS and will also annoy the visitors!

Adding 2 search engine to this blog showed some positive results, but you need not take this as a rule. Every blog is different and results vary, so do some research and experiments on your blog and analyze the results and then decide whether to keep one or two search engine forms on your blog.

While placing the Search Engine forms, just keep in mind that, their placement also play a major role.

And also keep in mind that, you need to have more articles on your blog. If you have just 10 to 25 articles, then you cannot relay on the results. If that is the case with you, then stop the experiment and concentrate more on blogging and do further research when you have more articles.

Add Refinements/Labels to your Custom Search Engine

Log into CSE and click on Control panel –> Refinements –> Add refinement.

Refinements are labels that you apply to websites. They appear as a list of links above search results, offering users a way to narrow their search. When a user clicks a refinement label, the sites that you have labeled are given priority in the results. In addition to labeling sites, you can also specify additional words that are added to users’ queries when they click a label, providing even more targeted results.

Google maintains a list of existing refinement labels. If you create a label with the same name as one of these, or with the same name as a label in another search engine that you or someone who is collaborating with you has created, users will also have the benefit of seeing relevant sites from these sources in their search results also.

Here refinements acts like the key word help for finding the relevant articles in our blog.

Add Custom Search Engine to your wordpress blog easily

Replace your default wordpress theme search engine with Google Custom Search Engine.
There are 3 option’s to show the result page:-

If you want to have results within your own site, then you need to create another page similar to your blog pages(to make it look more professional), and add the codes from Adsense account. This requires one to have some knowledge about html and some other basic Internet programming knowledge.
If you are using a magazine style theme and if you are showing additional advertisements on the sidebar, then remove it from your result page. Because its an violation of adsense policy.

There is another easy option, which doesn’t require any programming knowledge.
1. Open results on Google in the same window.
2. Open results on Google in a new window.

Now you decide about opening results page in new window or in the same window(Its considered user friendly, if all links open in same window, so we recommend selecting the 1st option. i.e., Open Results in the same window.)

Goto your Adsense account or Google Custom Search Engine page and get the codes to paste in your wordpress blog.

Now login to your wordpress and click on the “Design” tab –> Click on “Theme Editor”. Now search for “searchform.php” or similar file and click on it.
Now look for <div class="search"> </div> tags and delete everything inbetween them and paste the CSE codes from your adsense or Google CSE account and save it.

For Example:- Look at my Custom Search Engine[Top right corner — near navigation bar] and search for any keyword and see the result page.

If you are good at HTML and PHP, you can integrate the CSE into your own site and you can make the results to be shown in your own site. This looks even more professional.
But having any type of Custom Search Engine is better than not having one, so follow any method and integrate CSE to your blog.

Know This Before Using Google Custom Search Engine

There are many advantages of adding Google Custom Search Engine to your wordpress blog.
Some are listed below..
1. People are used to search in Google.com and they will not find it difficult to do the same in your blog.
2. You can monetize the search results using Google Ads. [Optional]
3. Ability to give options for users, to search only our blog or the entire web.
4. We can know exactly what people are searching in our blog using the search engine.
5. Looks more professional. SERP can be hosted on our own site or Google.
6. Easy to integrate and use.
7. More features. We can include Refinements/Labels at the top of the result page.
8. Highly Customizable. We can customize the look and feel of the result page. We can put our logo instead of Google logo and link it back to our main site/blog. Font colour and the placement of ads can be controlled by ourselves.
9. We can control the type of ads appearing on our search result page, by including Search engine keywords, Site description etc. The ads will match to the keyword of search as well as to the keywords that we have included. We can even block competitors advertisements.
10. Can include the results from multiple sites/blogs.

Caution:-
We have seen many bloggers using CSE(Custom Search Engine) and their SERP(Search Engine Result Page) is violating the Adsense policy, by showing additional ads on the SERP.
Here is what Google has to say about it..

Can I show ads on AdSense for search results pages in my own site?

We ask that you don’t place any additional ads on pages with framed search results. However, you’re welcome to place an AdSense for search box on the page so your users can continue to search if they haven’t found what they’re looking for.

Now without wasting much of time, Create a CSE and put it on to your blog, if you haven’t done yet.
There are two ways to do this.
1. Login to your adsense account and goto “AdSense Setup” tab and click on “AdSense for Search”. Further instruction are self explanatory.
2. Goto Google Custom Search Engine and click on “Create a Custom Search Engine”.

The advantage of using the 2nd option is, we get “Advance setup features” and more customization options. So we recommend using CSE.

To connect your Custom Search Engine account with Google AdSense, visit the Make money tab in your search engine’s control panel.

Fill in the form with the email address that you use with your AdSense account, your zip code, and the last 5 digits of your phone number. Google will use this information to connect your Custom Search Engine account to your AdSense account and you can start making money immediately.

Now you make money by monetizing the search result page and your readers will be comfortable searching what they are looking for. So its a win-win situation 🙂