Every website with more than a few web pages should have a site search engine. Your visitors expect to be able to search your site and search is the first thing they’ll try when they are at your site but can’t find what they’re looking for. A quick way to add search to your site is to use Google’s Custom Search Engine tool, which allows you to search against Google’s master index but pare down the results to only those found in a select set of websites. The CSE search box and results can be embedded within your website, providing your visitors with a fully functional site-wide search experience.

Hubspot and Google Custom Search

One challenge with adding the Google CSE to an HubSpot website is that the search box markup is implemented as a form. The search box markup suggested by Google for my blog follows:

<form action=”http://www.meadowlarkenergy.com/search-results/” id=”cse-search-box”>
<div>
<input type=”hidden” name=”cx” value=”009828287250050420178:iusm0y5oo44″ />
<input type=”hidden” name=”cof” value=”FORID:10″ />
<input type=”hidden” name=”ie” value=”UTF-8″ />
<input type=”text” name=”q” size=”31″ />
<input type=”submit” name=”sa” value=”Search” />
</div>
</form>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.google.com/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&lang=en”></script>

HubSpot pages already have a postback form present, which complicates integrating the search box form into your ASP.NET pages. One approach is to use JavaScript (read more) and second one is iFrames <iframe>.