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Add a search engine to your website

Allow website visitors to search your website with the search engine widget. This widget allows you to cater the content that you will display to those who search, fast and efficient. Let's see together how the search engine works and how to display a search engine on your page or in the menus.

Search engine

Presentation and principal functions

You have the option to display a search engine on the totality of your website (regardless of the add-on) or a specific add-on. Please note that the search engine works not only with keywords, but also exact expressions.

Regardless of the add-on, the search will use the title of the item as well as the information that you provide in the Search engine optimization SEO, (which we will detail more in the following section). For certain add-ons the information provided make the search more detailed. This is the case for the Agenda add-on, where the search is done by the keywords, title, search engine optimisation but also the town and place.

There is no search engine for the Guestbook. The search engine doesn't concern the Booking add-on as this add-on has an inherent search engine that functions differently.

How to fine-tune the content found with your search engine

The search engine allows you to use words, or combinations of words, that are found in the title field as well as the search engine optimization. For each item that you add to your site you should be adding and perfecting the SEO portion be it a webpage, a blogpost, a photo, or an event, you should be sure to optimize the following two feilds for your search engine to work correctly.

1st you need to perfect the title

This title appears on the top of the page. It should contain the most important keywords that resume your webpage. This optimisation of your title is to be sure that when using an internal seach engine, the keywords lead and relate to your content, yet this is also helpful to gaining positions on search engines like Google, Yahoo, or even Youtube.

Page title

2nd let's look at the search engine optimization

Regardless of the add-on (pages, blog, photos etc), remember to complete your SEO information found at the bottom of the page

  • The Meta Title - this is the title that will appear in the navigation bar of your web browser.
  • The Meta Description - this description is a small sentence that will be listed under the title in search engines, be it on Google, Yahoo, or on your website. While this is not always used directly in determining your position on search engines, site visitors know what they are clicking thanks to the description you provide. In this short phrase be sure to use keywords to better your results in the search engine.
  • The Keywords - Add a list of keywords or expressions regarding your content, being sure to seperate each new keyword with a comma.

Seo

Add the search engine to a page

The page builder tool makes adding content easier and dynamic wherever you choose in a page. The search engine is linked to your website so that you can easily show off all your website's content.

A search engine for the website

  • In order to add a search engine for the entierity of your website :

Click on Add a block. Choose Other widgets. You will then go to the category titled Site and select the search engine widget and save.

A search engine for an add-on

  • In order to add a search engine specific to an Add-on :

Click on Add a block. Choose Other widgets and go to the add-on category of your choice and you will select the search engine then save.

Example : A search engine that is used for the blog posts on emyspot

The above example shows how to activate the search engine for a specific add-on. We choose to use the blog search engine. In order to do this for your website, you will click on Other widgets > Blog and then choose Search engine.

Add your search engine to a vertical menu

You can display all kinds of content in the side menu, including the search engine add-on. To do this go to Settings > Menus and then click Add a widget to the side menu of your choice. (Find out more about how to configure your menus with this tutorial dedicated to the vertical menu.)

A search engine for the website

  • In order to add a search engine for the entierity of your website :

Click on Add a block. Choose Other widgets. You will then go to the category titled Site and select the search engine widget and save.

A search engine for an add-on

  • In order to add a search engine specific to an Add-on :

Click on Add a block. Choose Other widgets and go to the add-on category of your choice and you will select the search engine then save.

Conclusion

Thanks to this widget, site visitors can easily search the content of your website that interests them the most.

You can display the search engine widget in a page or add the search engine to a menu. And when employing our responsive themes you can add a search engine for the header of your website.

You may also choose to use the search engine widgets Google, Yahoo, Youtube search engines. This widget can be activated in a page and click on Other widgets > Gadgets and select the widget of your choice. You can also display it in the side menu as well by going to Settings > Menus > Add a widget > Gadgets. The searches done with these widgets will not only concern your website but the whole of the internet and may be less pertinent.

For optimal results (and for better SEO) we reccomend using the widget specific to your website that uses your titles and SEO inforrmation given.