Getting The Most Out Of Your Lijit Wijit

I’ve been using Lijit since the inception of the service and while I’ve added and removed many different “fad” widgets, Lijit remains a core widget I’ve kept because it continues to consistently bring me traffic and add value to my readers. As of today, Lijit has brought my blog over 7500 unique visitors via research (a feature that’s unique to Lijit) and I’m averaging one or two blog searches per day – not bad for a widget on a personal blog that only gets updated once or twice a week.

Lijit offers a variety of options for customizing the widget and there are a five simple things you can do to increase the number of times your readers use Lijit, which increases reader engagement, page views, and search revenue.

Tip 1: Add the Popular Searches Cloud.
A small number of terms that display beneath the search box would not, on first glance, seem to do much, but on average, publishers see anywhere from a 200 – 500% increase in searches, according to Lijit – my experience is that this figure is accurate. The popular searches cloud does a lot to signal what types of content is popular on your blog and invites people to click on popular searches.

How does the Popular Searches Cloud work? It records repeat searches and displays the most popular ones. To appear in the cloud, a search must be performed a minimum of three times and come from different IPs. You can control the number of terms that appear in the cloud in your widget settings. You can also blacklist terms from appearing in your search cloud within the settings.

Tip 2: Move the Search Box to the Top of Your Blog. A simple rule is that if people see the search box, they will use the box. If it’s hidden among all the other items on the sidebar, people will miss out on the goodness that is Lijit. How much does moving the box above the fold mean in terms of searches? Another 200-300% increase. Nice!

Tip 3: Make it the Only Search Box. Ok, this one might not be such a revelation. If there is only one place to search, then, well, people will only use that one place to search. Amazing and simple.

Tip 4: Be an Expert. As a publisher, you know that writing about a specific topic will almost always increase readership and engagement. But did you know that the more expertise you develop around a specific topic, the more people want to search your content? I know! Weird.

Tip 5: Turn on Re-Search. There is a feature in your widget settings called Re-Search. What does this do? Well, when someone does a search on a search engine like Google, Yahoo! or MSN, and clicks on your result, Lijit does the same search in your search widget when they get to your site. Then, depending on your settings, Lijit displays those results either with your widget, on top of your blog, or below the post. Why is this good? About 1-2% of readers will click on a result in Re-Search, letting them read more of your content. This increased engagement helps readers trust you more, which leads them to read your content more, which leads them to trust you more…it’s a crazy cycle of goodness!

That’s it. The bottom line is, the more often people use Lijit on your site, the more often they will be able to discover your content whever you’re creating it, which is what we all want. Small tweaks can and will make a difference.

Note: Special Thanks to Tara at Lijit for providing the content and discusson that led to this post.