Recent changes to website search are disrupting the way colleges and universities provide a fundamental website feature that impacts every key audience. In this webinar, we will: Review how the website search landscape has changed. Discuss opportunities institutions have to use search to improve visitor experiences. Examine how a major University tackled replacement of their former search solution, Google Search Appliance. Look to the future at how search may unfold for colleges and universities.

1. Improving the Search
Experience in Higher Ed:
What’s Next?
Webinar
+

2. Your Moderator Today:
Mallory
+ Director of Marketing and Sales
+ Executive Producer, Higher Ed Live
+ L.A. Transplant
@MalloryWillsea

3. Housekeeping:
A few starting details:
50-minute webinar + 10 minutes for questions and answers
Chat and ask questions through the Zoom Control Panel
Tweet during the webinar with #mStonerNow
Please fill out the post-webinar survey
Check your inbox on Friday for the webinar recording and slide deck

4. Your Presenters Today:
Ben
@funnelback
+ Vice President, Sales and Marketing
+ Australian Native
+ Chicago Transplant

5. Your Presenters Today:
Greg
+ Director of Web Development
+ English major
+ Missouri Native
@gzguta

6. As We Get Started
Our Goal
Provide an overview of site search in higher education to inform how
you manage change and plan for the future.
Confirm the value of search and how changes in visitor expectations
and technology tools impact your site visitors.

7. Today’s
Topics
1. Search in Higher Ed
2. Opportunities with
Audiences
3. Higher Ed Example
4. The Future of Search
Agenda

8. Poll
• Our search returns old or irrelevant results
• Key content is not part of our search index
• Searching Google yields better results
• The styling of our search is too basic, off brand
• Other? Share in the chat room.
(We’re all friends here.)
What is your biggest pain
point with website search?

9. Search in Higher Ed

10. Finding information is either
a software question or a
question of how much
information is online.
Bill Gates
“

11. History of Tools
Google Offering Changes
+ Lower cost search
appliance
+ Discontinued 2012
+ Enterprise search
appliance
+ Phase out from
2016-2019
+ Hosted
+ Low cost
+ Ceased sales April 2017
Google Mini
Google Search
Appliance
Google Site Search
+ Still available (for now)
+ Basic features
+ Hosted
+ API available for a cost
+ Basic usage free, and
without ads for non-profits
Google Custom Search

12. History of Tools
Other options
+ Included with CMS or
add on modules
+ Typically licensed
software
+ Apache Solr
+ Typically self-hosted
solutions
+ Usually hosted
+ New products like
Funnelback
CMS-based Search
Open Source
Search
Third-party search

13. Higher Ed Search
Most still use Google Custom
Search
61%
Third-party search CMS-based searchGoogle Custom Search
20% 14%

14. Higher Ed Search
Top pain points with
search…
• Irrelevant results and no ability to fix them
• Need for additional controls filtering/facets
• Can only search 1 system or source
• Can’t change the design easily
• No one uses it (because no one trusts it!)
• Doesn’t give good analytics or insights

15. #1: Where are we now?
Replacing Google Products
Institutions are replacing Google search products with different
tools.

16. #2: Where are we now?
Streamlining externally
facing sites
Marketing and communications is trimming content from sites,
and more carefully thinking about information architecture for
prospective students. Intranets and internally facing content still
needs a home.

17. #3: Where are we now?
Looking for more features
Institutions are integrating directories, programs, social, and
other sources into the search. Looking for more robust search
features.

18. Opportunities with Audiences

19. Opportunity: Directories
Faculty/staff/student
directory.

20. Example
directory

21. Opportunity: Experts
Expert profiles and
publications

22. Expert
profiles and
publications

23. Opportunity: Social Media
Search social media content

24. Social media
results

25. Opportunity: Promoted Content
Targeted messaging
personalized to the user

26. Promotion
example

27. Opportunity: Programs
Academic program search

28. Academic
Programs

29. University of North Dakota

30. True Story
UND background
Brand new templates in a
new instance of the CMS.
Rollout of new brand
elements developed for
the University.
New content and tools to
present 200+ programs in
a consistent way.
Website redesign New brand Emphasizing programs
A website redesign and a new search experience
Replace GSA that was
moving out of support.
Replacing Google Search
Appliance

32. Search results retain the look and
feel of the website
Custom styling
Custom styling using UND brand
fonts, colors, and site header and
footer.
1

33. Search crawls web, programs, and
people directory content
Academic Program Results
Complimenting UND’s revamped
academic program pages are search
results filtered for programs using a
tab within the search results.
2

34. Search result pages for
school and college sites
College Search
Filtered site search results for UND’s
nine school and college sites. This
option integrates with the search box
in header of school and college sites.
3

35. Real-time suggestions as
queries are typed
Auto-completion
Suggested terms and matching
people and program results from
search index.
4

36. Curated result content for
top query terms
Promoted Results
Promoted results for key terms, such
as the UND Admissions office.
Synonyms for similar terms, for
example “admission” vs.
“admissions”.
5

37. The Future of Search

38. #1
Search powered content
Leverage search engine intelligence to assemble dynamic content
within your website
Curtin Discover Tasmania Middlesex

39. #2
Voice search
Alexa, Google Home, Cortana… and now your website?
http://westpac.com.au/

40. Elements of a Great Search Solution
Index tuning Curated results
Content auditing
features
Multiple data sourcesAnalytics and reporting
Autocomplete
Branding
Faceted filtering and
sorting
Hosting options

41. Improving search
Reasons to revisit search
Google or CMS solutions
going away or not meeting
needs
Search matches your site
for a better visitor
experience
Need for better control of
indexing and auditing
content
Replace aging tools Update branding Improve results quality
Promoted content,
combined directory and
web search, multiple data
sources, and improved
ease of use.
Enhance visitor experience

42. Resources
Resources
Post: Your CMS & Search
Conference: Advanced Marketing
for Higher Ed Websites
Case Study: University of North Dakota
E-Book: A New Content Strategy
Product: Funnelback for Higher Education
Dive Deeper Download Explore
Give Us Feedback

43. Questions & Answers

44. Questions + Thank You!
GREG ZGUTA
Director of Web Development
(314) 884-1803
greg.zguta@mstoner.com+
BEN TILLEY
Vice President, Sales and
Marketing
(206) 538-5375
btilley@funnelback.com