Search on your membership site: helping members find answers

Once your library passes a few dozen items, members stop browsing and start searching. A member of a vegetable gardening site does not want to click through months of articles to find the one about blossom end rot on tomatoes. She wants to type “tomato black bottoms” into a box and get the answer. If search returns nothing, or a jumble of unrelated forum posts, she will assume the answer is not there, even if you have written about it three times.

Search is one of the least glamorous parts of a membership site and one of the most valuable. It is where members tell you, in their own words, exactly what they need. Handled well, it makes your whole library feel more useful. Handled badly, it quietly hides the content members are paying for.

Put search where members expect it

Members look for search in familiar places: near the top of the page, usually toward the right, and often shown as a magnifying glass icon. Place it there on every page of the member area, not just the home page. On a phone, a search icon in the header that opens a full-width box is the usual pattern.

A visible box with a hint inside, such as “Search lessons, articles and the forum,” tells members what search covers. That sets expectations and encourages people to use it. Search complements your menu rather than replacing it: members who know roughly where something lives will browse, and those who do not will search. If your menu itself needs work, start with navigation that helps members find what they need.

Decide what search should cover

Many membership sites have several kinds of content: articles, course lessons, videos, downloads, forum threads and events. Sometimes each has its own separate search, and members have no idea which one to use. Wherever your membership platform allows it, aim for one search that covers everything, with results clearly labeled by type.

Check what is actually searchable. Common gaps include:

• Video and audio. Search can only find words, so a video with a one-line description is effectively invisible. Add a summary and, ideally, a transcript.
• Downloads. The text inside a PDF may not be searched at all. Give each download a page or description with the key terms in it.
• Old forum threads. These often hold excellent answers but may be excluded, or may drown out your own articles.
• Content above a member's level. Decide whether higher-level content should appear in results with a note about upgrading, or be hidden entirely. Either can work, but be consistent.

Write titles and summaries that search can use

Search tools rely heavily on titles and the first lines of content. A clever title may be charming in a newsletter, but it makes your content hard to find later. Compare:

Before: When Good Fruit Goes Bad

After: Blossom end rot on tomatoes and peppers: causes and fixes

The second title contains the words members will actually type. The same goes for summaries. A sentence at the top of each piece that states plainly what it covers helps both search and the member skimming the results.

Tags can help too, especially with synonyms. Members may search for “slugs,” “snails” or “pests” when they want the same article. If your platform supports tags or keywords, add the everyday terms members use alongside the technical ones.

Design a results page that helps people choose

A good results page lets members decide quickly which result to open. Each result should show a clear title, the type of content (lesson, article, video, forum thread), a short snippet showing the search term in context and, for time-sensitive material, a date. Where possible, let members filter by type, so someone looking for a video lesson does not have to wade through forum replies.

Pay special attention to what happens when there are no results. “No results found” is a dead end. A better message offers somewhere to go next:

We couldn't find anything for “tomato black bottoms.” Try a shorter search, or browse the Vegetable Problems collection. Still stuck? Ask in the forum and a member or one of our team will help.

Learn from what members search for

If your platform keeps a log of searches, it is one of the most revealing reports you have. Review it regularly and look for three things:

1. Searches with no results. Either the content does not exist, or it exists under different words. Both are fixable.
2. Frequent searches. If many members search for the same thing, it should probably be easier to reach from the menu or member home page.
3. Searches followed by more searches. A member who searches “watering,” then “watering schedule,” then “how often water” did not find what they wanted.

Here is how a monthly review might look for the gardening site, as an illustration. Out of 400 searches, the owner notices 30 for “raised bed soil” that returned nothing useful, because the article was titled “Filling your beds.” She renames it. There are 20 searches for “seed swap,” a topic she has never covered, so it goes on the content calendar. And “frost dates” appears again and again, so she adds a link to the frost date guide on the member home page.

Searches that find nothing are also a ready-made list of article ideas. The process in turn member questions into your next month of content shows how to turn them into a publishing plan.

Your search improvement plan

• Make sure a search box appears in the same place on every member page, including on phones.
• Try ten searches using the words members use, not your own terms, and note what fails.
• Add summaries and transcripts to your most popular videos.
• Give every download a description with its key terms.
• Rewrite the titles of your ten most important pieces so they contain the words members would type.
• Replace your “no results” message with one that suggests next steps.
• Put a monthly reminder in your calendar to review the search log.

Every search a member types is a small request for help. The more of those requests your site answers, the more your library feels worth the price.