MelvinBlog

A blog that chronicles my journey on online marketing, blogging, social media, technology and life.

Enhance Your Search Functionalities With Lijit

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One thing a lot of my readers notice since the start of this year was the different looks of the search functionality here in my blog. It’s not the built-in WordPress Search nor is it the one from Google, it is from a third party website called Lijit

What is Lijit?

First and foremost I’d like to clear that this is no way a sponsored review. In fact this post was in my drafts for like four months already so i might as well just work on this one.

Anyways one problem always with the search is that the built-in WordPress search isn’t as comprehensive and accurate as many of us want. Top bloggers like Darren Rowse and Jeremy Schoemaker agreed that it’s not really the best blog search engine available. On the other side of the fence, Google’s Search for blog may be a perfect alternative but making it work perfectly is quite a challenge since you need to tweak a lot of the algorithms and do all those geeky stuffs.

Lijit is MY best solution since its been very newbie-friendly while still having that robust functionality. It sports that web 2.0ish look while really not cluttering nor slowing down your blog.

You can get started by heading up to lijit website and basically signing up, its free anyways! Once done you’d do all the basic stuffs like putting up your blog’s name, feed and etc. The one unique feature with Lijit though is they incorporate your other social media accounts within their social platform. For instance, the search could return any article I’ve submitted through digg or stumbleupon etc. It can also fetch some of the posts from the blogs in the blogroll. Overall the add-on features are just exceptional.

Personalization is also as easy as hell. You can basically match the color schemes of the widget to your blog, modify the elements, use your own size and etc. There’s also an option wherein you could make your search results either on a light-box effect or have it on a different page instead.

Overall I really like Lijit and heck I wouldn’t write this long ass post if Im not recommending this one for you. 🙂 It’s not the perfect search but absolutely the ideal one for bloggers. It’s widely used by popular websites like the lolcats network and other famous sites like Problogger, Lamebook and etc. How about you? What do you think about Lijit? Have you had any bad experience with them?

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Melvin, thanks for the great review. We love user feedback and take it very seriously. In fact, our users help to drive our product road map so if you have any additional feedback about our services and product, feel free to e-mail me anytime. I’m grace at lijit dot com.

    In addition to our search (that you so eloquently outline) we provide stats for our users that uncover reader intent and help you discover new blogging content through the frequent searches made on your blog. We also help you monetize through search ads and front page, display advertising if you’re interested in making money on your blog with our advertising campaigns.

    Glad to hear you’re enjoying Lijit, Melvin. Feel free to e-mail me anytime and congratulations on graduating college.

    Cheers,
    Grace

    Publisher Services Manager at Lijit

  2. Mmm, that explains why that I didn’t really recognise Lijit when I first saw it on your blog – but to be honest, I didn’t pay that much attention to it, as I was more focussed on your blog content =). Well now that you mentioned it, I went back to look at the search box by Lijit on your blog, and well, yes, it does look quite web 2.0-ish and suits the theme of your blog branding.

    About the social platform that you spoke about, that any search in Lijit may bring up anything that you’ve posted on social platforms – don’t google search boxes bring up those responses too? I haven’t started using any search platforms on my own blog so I am considering as well about placing a search box on my own blog.

    But to ask you, is having a search box on your blog (or anyone’s) important? If yes, why? Is it to simply add a functionality search button to your blog? Or does it do things like increase/decrease bounce rate etc?

  4. Hi Melvin,

    Your Blogger’s Union is asking for profit blog companies such as Lijit for transparency on what they profit from being on your blog, and what % is actually shared with the publisher.

    Will keep you posted if/when we get these answers from Lijit.

    Thanks,

    Barney

  5. Lijit is a must anymore for people utilizing search on WordPress. Not only does it enhance the results, you can get paid to use it. A double win.

  6. thanks Grace my pleasure. Here in the blog, I recommend tools/services that I use and one of them is your product.

    Sure I’d give you my feedbacks via email. Wait for that. 🙂

  7. Having a search box on any site, not just blogs is essential. Its because people SEARCH all the time. Sure its an added functionality but not having one is just a mortal sin.

    On a side note, having search box, especially if you can track, can pretty much give you good numbers on what to tweak on your blog. It gives you stats that you can play with.