Users' Search Satisfaction in Search Engine Optimization

This paper identifies the best practices and guidelines for designing an effective and meaningful e-commerce website so that the given site appears at the top in a search engine's search results. A research model for users' search satisfaction is evolved from the literature. The model is empirically tested and validated by obtaining survey-inputs from 101 students from a Canadian University. The factors affecting users' search satisfaction are user characteristics, search characteristics, search engine characteristics, and clicking behavior of advertisements. The data analysis validates the impact of website features, search engine contents and search problems on user's search satisfaction. User's search behavior includes the frequency of different search data input, navigational search and the usage of different devices positively influences user's search satisfaction. Besides, the advertisements clicking negatively influences user's satisfaction. The implications for the theory and practice are given.