Successful search engine implementation on Ekonomifakta.se

The website www.ekonomifakta.se is one of the most important sources of facts and statistics about Sweden’s economy. The website aims to assist visitors to quickly find what they are looking for. Hallvarsson & Halvarsson was entrusted with the task of building a new internal search engine.  

A well-visited website rich in information

Ekonomifakta’s website is well-visited and provides important national financial information. It holds an extensive amount of information and the ambition is to present financial facts and statistics in an easily accessible way which is as foreseeable as possible. Entering a website today is not necessarily through the start page but in most cases through external search engines and social medias among others. This makes it vital for the visitor to quickly obtain the exact information that they need and have it presented in an explanatory way; through navigation and search.

Hallvarsson & Halvarsson was assigned to product a suitable search engine as well as a search result page. The search engine must present results that are highly relevant to that is sought after. Ekonomifakta wanted to create a result page that actually was able to answer the visitor’s question without having to click further. At the same time the visitor should have the option to search further and dig deeper in the search result.

The purpose of the search result page

Ekonomifakta and H&H’s main goal with the assignment was to create a search result page which presented both hits and listings that were:

• Relevant
• Quick
• Beyond standard search engine’s approach and listings
• Pedagogical

Combine relevant answers with logical categories

The basis of the assignment consisted of statistical information about visitor’s behaviour and what they searched for externally (i.e. www.google.se) as well as internally (on www.ekonomifakta.se). In order to obtain relevance in individual searches Google’s search engine for companies, Search Appliance (GSA), was used to index the content. With this data the search result page was created.

It was important to combine a feeling a relevant answers with a logical listing of the different categories, for example the statistical section and article archive on the website. Hence a pallet of categories was created that addresses the given search word. Images, if available, were also shown. Definitions of words and terminology which are on www.ekonomifakta.se are shown at the top of the search result, before all of the other listings.

If the answer is not given in the immediate presentation the visitor can choose to filter and click on other search results. This work has subsequently resulted in better search engine optimization making the website more visible in external search engines.

Search result used for navigation

All in all the navigation on Ekonomifakta’s website has radically changed since the new search engine was implemented. This type of development is not very common today but is expected to appear on many websites in a near future. Companies know their own websites the best and can therefore through a search engine assignment such as this one adjust the search behaviour and assist the visitor to navigate through the large about of information on the website.