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Our company’s home office is in Las Vegas, Nevada, so we don’t see the usual signs of fall like turning leaves or orchards laden with ripe fruit.

However, in our line of business, we do see a lot of promising web sites yielding poor harvests because they’re not equipped to pick enough low-hanging fruit: the visitors already at their sites.

A case in point: polls shows that retailers seeking to improve conversion ratios are smitten with personalization technology which promises to attract customers with customized web pages. But if site usability is dismal, profitable relationships will stagnate, no matter how much marketing dollars you spend.

Expert researchers, such as Jupiter Research, are trying to turn marketers’ attention back to the basics of retaining loyal customers: good site search and navigation.

A recent Jupiter report states that it’s more effective for e-retailers to help customers figure out their own customization. Focus on flexible navigation and improved search to help visitors become their own personalization engines.” (“Beyond the Personalization Myth: Cost-effective Alternatives to Influence Intent”).

Studies show that 34% of shoppers rely on search as their primary means to locate products and 48% use search if their navigational attempts fail – yet 85% of searchers don’t supply what the customer is seeking.

To further illustrate, let’s say your site receives 100,000 unique users a month. That means approximately 34,000 users will search for a product but without the right search product, 28,900 searches will fail to satisfy the searcher’s needs! That’s 28,900 pieces of low-hanging fruit – your would-be customers – that your company won’t harvest due to ineffective site search.

The right search solution will help you recover these lost opportunities. The experts suggest that the wise choice is to invest in a solution that allows you to take an active role in determining relevance. Good site search grows with you and allows ongoing optimization – and thus will keep producing fruit, month after month, year after year.

As Matthew Berk, Senior Analyst at Jupiter Research says, "Focusing on the basics, in particular elements that let site visitors accomplish tasks, is a great use of time, money and labor."

One of the best investments for a bountiful harvest of profitable customer relationships is customizable site search.