Companies may be losing Internet customers because their large and complex Web sites are not optimised for intuitive searches, says Web integration firm Context Solutions.
A survey of about 100 local corporations` Web sites undertaken recently by Cape Town-based Context Solutions showed that only three had search functionality.
"Ideally a person should be able to search using any text in any place to help find what they want, but many companies are losing business because their potential customers are not able to intuitively search," says Marc Gammon, owner of Context Solutions.
Gammon says users who visit a site are expected to be able to find what they are looking for by navigating around. "This is not good enough. If the site structure is not intuitive enough, or the user simply fails to notice the right links, they will rapidly become frustrated and go somewhere else. In the online world, you can lose a customer in seconds."
He says the survey was done by using a randomly generated sample taken from search Web site Ananzi.co.za, and only used those companies whose sites had "a reasonable amount of content".
"We excluded media companies, because text-based search is really important to them as content providers," Gammon says.
Normally, a retail site has various buttons indicating categories of goods and these are in a fairly structured format. A medical aid site, for example, is typically structured to give separate entrances for direct clients and brokers.
"People need to be able to search intuitively. For instance, if I need 'sugar-free yoghurt` from a retailer, I should not have to click and click until I find it. Rather I should just be able to use the words."
Gammon recommends the outsourcing approach, as companies do not install their own text-based search functions because of the expense and time involved.
"If they had to do it on their own, they generally have to designate at least one person within the IT department to do it, but it may not be seen as a full-time job. Then there is the problem of updating the database and ensuring the text is properly indexed," he says.
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