I’m currently working on a site building project in which the client would like to implement a search tool that will query keywords from the following data types:
REGISTERED PARTICIPANTS (which will either be stored strictly in Contacts DB or if easier to implement will be piped out of Contacts DB into a HubDB sheet)
BLOG POSTS
NEWS ARTICLES (which will be structured as a second blog)
Iterations of the keyword on pages of the site
Participants, articles, and page results would ideally be divided into a three-tabbed system. I have yet to find any documentation on querying different data types at once, and am unsure if it is even a feasible thing at this time. I’ve also been in conversation with a dev from Hubspot who is still brainstorming on the matter, so I figured I would open the challenge up to the community and see if anyone on here has built something similar or has ideas on how one might approach the task.
Thanks so much for any light you may be able to shed :). I haven’t really built this out yet so I don’t have any code to include, but if any other context would be useful please feel free to let me know.
You would have to search the site and the DB differently. You should be able to build a new dict from the results, though the results will probably be structured differently on output so styling would be different.
It isn’t a Hubspot feature by any means so anything you do would be custom. I don’t think there is anything wrong with telling them it isn’t possible since technically it isn’t and any solution you find would be hacky at best.
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond! This is actually quite helpful. I am wondering if you’d have any suggestions regarding building the most robust search tool possible within the bounds of Hubspot (in other words, avoiding hacky solutions). Can we get remotely in the ballpark of what the client wants with the out of box functionality, or not so much? Just trying to do some weighing. Any input would be super helpful.
Hubspot recently added a site search feature. It is a pair of modules you can find by searching “search” when adding modules to a template. I’ve messed with this a little but I wasn’t able to limit the search to just the blog. It does search the entire site though which should cover everything but HubDB. I do not know if you can manipulate or group results.
Please pardon my ignorance around your specific use case. I don’t pretend to know your endgame.
That being said, there comes a point at which we must simply stop getting all geeky with design functionality and ask the human question, “WHY?”.
- does this functionality add value to the UXfor the visitor?
- does this functionality give us valuable intelligencewe can use to help prospects, subscribers, leads, customers in Sales / Marketing?
- does this functionality in any way contribute to CONVERSIONS -- i.e., the primary point of deploying a powerful marketing automation platform in the first place.
To quote a former HubSpotter now Googler, Austin Knight, “Design is not art”. Basically, non-data-driven design in a lead-generation marketing context is a total waste of time. We should always ask ourselves (and clients) “WHY?”.
Why are we doing this ‘great idea of (y)ours’.
If it’s simply to ‘experiment’, then maybe consider another of Austin’s excellent articles, Design Debt before potentially creating yet another Frankenstein monster website -- which “happens when a bunch of incremental changes collect over time and yield a disjointed, inconsistent, and patched-together experience”.
