Growth-hacking using Google site search

I see a lot of startups using all kinds of popup surveys these days - Qualaroo, SurveyMonkey, HotJar, Survs etc. - in a attempt to squeeze more conversions from their funnels.

• "What is the problem you're trying to solve?"
• "What were you hoping to find on this page?"
• "What is stopping you from signing up right now?"
• "Did you find the page helpful or not?"
• Or even an exit popup asking "Why are you leaving our website?"

The problem with these popups is that they are the definition of "interruption marketing" - a traditional marketing approach in which you force people to stop what they're doing and pay attention to your message. This is sometimes called "outbound marketing" as opposed to "inbound marketing" where people are frictionlessly drawn to your product via organic channels - SEO, AdWords, remarketing or content marketing.

But is there an "inbound marketing" way to answer all these questions? Is there a non-interruptive way to get into your visitors heads? Turns out there is. Just add a site search.

Apart from giving your visitors a way to search your website (which is a very nice UX-addition already), you get a huge free bonus - search analytics.

It only takes a couple of clicks to install Google Site Search to your website and connect it to Google Analytics. Then wait for 2-3 weeks, go to Google Analytics - "Behavior" - "Site Search" - "Search Terms" and see exactly which information people are missing on your website.

Use the data to generate new content or simply add the missing keywords to your existing pages. Then reiterate every 2 weeks.

UPD: As of 2018 Google has discontinued Google Site Search but there's still Google Custom Search that is still available. And here's how you set up Google Analytics for site search.

P.S. As much as I suck at making infographics, here's my pathetic attempt to create one.