Best place for Search Options

[Susmita]

I am trying to redesign my site. I am at the planning stage. Before I implement any changes I need to clarify few of my queries, like...

Where do I place the search options in post log in pages. A search options to search for existing members and name of school, colleges and workplaces.

Should I place the search options in every pages? Or to some specific pages.

Please help.

Thanks

[simonlogan]

As a general rule of thumb, place it on whatever pages it will be relevant. Dependant upon the method by which you are designing the site, if you're using some sort of scripting such as ASP or PHP then maybe put the code in an include file and just drop it into relevant pages.

Might be worthwhile considering amending the search parameters slightly based upon the specific page content, ie on the start page(s) have a basic search then on the more specific pages where you are looking at the results of the initial search then provide a direct method to search on those results. For example, you search on a school and then click on that school's detail page and on *that* page you can easily search for other related schools or something along those lines.

It's all dependant upon the actual content of your site.