HubSpot is one of the most popular inbound marketing and sales platforms of all time, serving thousands of businesses both small and large in over 90 countries worldwide. Some 4.5 million people visit HubSpot blogs every month, and companies rely on it to automate their marketing efforts, gain customer insights with built-in analytics, and above all, create landing pages, email campaigns, and websites.
But, like any software platform, HubSpot is not without its limitations. For many HubSpot customers, one of the platform’s major constraints is its generic search tool. As we’ve mentioned previously, poor search can have a big impact on company experience and reputation.
Fortunately HubSpot has made it easy for their customers to integrate powerful custom alternatives to improve their website’s search. Below we’ll explore some options businesses have to make their website’s search on HubSpot more effective for visitors.
What Is HubSpot, and What Are the Limitations of Its Search Functionality?
HubSpot is a marketing and sales platform featuring a massive suite of tools for delivering better experiences to their customers. From built-in analytics software to drag-and-drop customization for websites and emails, HubSpot can do just about everything. Customers can even add search tools to HubSpot pages to help their visitors find what they need as quickly as possible.
But what many marketing and sales professionals have discovered is that out-of-the-box search functionality is, by and large, rather inadequate for their needs:
- HubSpot’s default search is the same search tool that Google provides to businesses and blogs for free. This tool provides very little flexibility in how companies create filters or customize result rankings.
- Google Site Search (GSS) is on its way out next year. This will leave many HubSpot websites and stores without a dedicated search tool.
- For some businesses, GSS and Google Custom Search (CSE) are simply too limited to meet their needs. The sheer amount of products or data these businesses offer is too large to warrant anything less than a dedicated search tool on their websites.
So what other options do businesses have? Thankfully, more dedicated site search options are available for businesses, and many of these play nice with HubSpot.
What Other Site Search Options Are Available for HubSpot?
Many companies have proprietary site search tools which can be integrated with HubSpot. But before you pick a site search tool to go with, make sure you take into careful consideration what you want from a new tool in the first place.
- You want a search tool that is both fast enough to handle visitor queries in real time and powerful enough to churn through a massive amount of data to provide the most insightful and relevant search results possible.
- Some search platforms have built-in analytics that can provide insights that go much deeper than HubSpot’s default analytics.
- Customizable rankings and weights will help visitors find what they need faster, and even make suggestions based on product or information popularity.
This is just a high-level overview of what a dedicated search engine can do for your business. For businesses that want to give their visitors the ultimate search experience, it’s best to combine HubSpot with a more effective search tool—preferably one with powerful AI, customizable rankings, and in-depth analytics.
Want to Combine a Dedicated Search Tool with HubSpot? Swiftype Can Help
We help companies large and small connect HubSpot to our powerful site search capabilities. If you have a question about our search products, feel free to contact Swiftype here.