Big Data has definitely grown up and shed its “buzzword” status. The fact that Google processes more than five billion searches every 24 hours is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the reams of data flying around at any given minute, and it explains why real-time search analytics are rapidly gaining importance.

What exactly is Real-Time Analytics and How Does It Relate to Search?

Real-Time Analytics, at its most basic, is knowing—and acting upon—events happening in your business when they are occurring. In the good old days, consumer data was parsed, processed, stored, and analyzed well after the fact. The data was still good; it was just old.

Couple that with the fact that today’s searchers expect immediate results. They want an organization to be proactive rather than reactive. Real-time search analytics allows you to accomplish that by providing a “real-life/real-time” picture of how your users engage with your site and your site search platform.

And since search is one of the clearest ways to determine exactly what your audience wants, having access to measurable and actionable search data, trends, pain points, or issues—in real time—brings huge value to businesses and drives increased, timely competition. Organizations are able to drive new business opportunities and revenue streams  as well as increase profits, grow customer bases and improve overall customer service. So how do you put real-time search analytics to use?

Ensure the Right Content is Reaching Your Customers

With 200+ million people using ad blockers today, getting your messaging to the right eyeballs has never been more difficult. And as for business decision makers? Eighty percent of them prefer to learn about you via content versus ads. Real-time analytics allows you to immediately track what people are searching, and then identify gaps where users are searching but not finding. This info provides insights around what content you should—and shouldn’t—be creating and shows you immediately if information is resonating (or not).

Track Clickthroughs and Conversions

Any good, real-time site search solution should provide you with analytics to track clickthroughs and conversions. This helps you understand what your users are searching for, clicking on, and engaging with—while they are still on your site—and exactly which of those actions leads to conversions.

Here at Swiftype, as you can see in the image below, you can also track which autocomplete queries are most popular, and what content was most commonly chosen from the autocomplete suggestions:

Analyze Patterns and Predict Interest

Real-Time Analytics allows you have the data you need, at your fingertips, while those searches, clickthroughs, and conversions are actually happening. This affords you the opportunity to more accurately and rapidly tease out trends, set business goals and benchmarks, and develop laser-focused articles, white papers, eBooks, or case studies. Setting this trend for proactivity rather than reactivity helps businesses stay ahead of the competition.  

There’s a great quote that tradesmen use: “Measure twice, cut once.” Speed is a wonderful thing, but accuracy is even better. And now, with technology, we can have both. Having access to real-time search data not only helps you get the right content in front of the right eyeballs, resulting in satisfied customers and searchers, but it also helps your teams know what content to produce, when to produce it, and why it’s important to customers. The end result? Greater productivity and efficiency, and content creators have the information and guidance they need to get it right the first time.

Learn more about what Swiftype analytics can do by digging in and starting a free trial today.