Recently we talked to Jamin Arvig, Director of Business Development at WaterFilters.NET, a leading distributor for the major water treatment brands. WaterFilters.NET makes it easy for its customers to find and purchase commercial and residential water filters, whole house water filtration systems, reverse osmosis systems, water softeners, and more types of water purification products.
1) Why did you need Google Custom Search Business Edition (CSBE)?
Our previous search engine was running into problems as we were adding more and more water filter product pages to our site. Some of our pages were not indexed at all and the search results seemed to be getting less and less relevant.
2) What technology, if any, did it replace and why?
[Previous Search Provider] was more expensive than Google search, and its results were not as good.
3) What benefits have you derived from using CSBE?
- Before we made the switch, customers would complain that they couldn't find the correct water filter. There was no doubt many more people that left our site after not finding the filters they were searching for. Even our employees had trouble finding the right product pages for customers that were on the phone.
- Now, it is very easy to find the relevant results on searches for all content and product pages.
- Our bounce rate decreased by 4%. Our conversion rate increased by 11%.
- As another bonus, the Google site search shows us whether Google is having trouble indexing our site. If Google site search is having trouble indexing a page, it might mean that the main Google search engine is also having trouble.
4) What features of CSBE do you appreciate most and why?
We like the statistics available in the control panel. We also like the common "Google" look and feel that people are familiar with.
5) Are you using Google Analytics on your website?
Yes.
6) What's been the overall impact of using Google CSBE on your website?
It has helped our searching capabilities, improved our water filter sales, and allowed us to focus on water filtration rather than waste time worrying about a faulty search engine.
7) Do you have any advice you'd give others in implementing the Google CSBE for their company's use?
There are many great features that we haven't explored yet. But even the basic features of the search engine provide the most relevant results, and are very easy to implement.
8) Are there particular industry specific uses that CSBE was able to add value to?
It was able to integrate pages from applicable water filtration websites into the list of possible results within the results page of our main site.
