The on-site search has become an integral part of any e-commerce website. However, many times its importance is overlooked, which could drastically kill your conversion rate. Based on the research conducted by WebLinc, the average revenue that was earned from site search was considerably higher than the regular purchases. Unfortunately, still many companies haven’t identified its advantages, and are not utilizing it to leverage it in other areas.
Having an on-site search is not only enough. It needs to be optimized to derive desired results. If your visitors cannot find the results they are expecting from your search bar, they will simply leave your website. Therefore, it is essential to pay attention to your site search and make necessary changes that show better results to your users. Here is how you can do it to provide relevant and robust results from the internal search engine.
#1 Search with Autocomplete Feature
Going to site search on the Amazon.com website without any particular product in mind will immediately start showing suggestions. We entered ‘mobile’ and the search bar started displaying a list of results right away.
When you suggest specific products to your users, you are leading them along the path to make a purchase even before they decide what they want to buy. In a way, you are putting your visitor one step closer to become a customer by helping them with product suggestions.
#2 Adequate Search Filters
Imagine you are searching ‘t-shirts’ and you are presented with millions of products, out of which you are looking to buy only one. It is really frustrating to go through the clutter of such a large number of products.
Providing adequate search filters help users to narrow down their search and precisely locate what they are looking for. Integrate adequate sorting and search filters like brand, color, size, price and availability to smooth the product navigation process.
#3 Personalized Recommendations
It is very much common that your products go out of stock or no longer available. In such situations, users usually end up seeing ‘product not available’ page. This could create a very wrong impression of your brand and your users are sure to abandon your site.
Rather than showing ‘product not available’ page, redirect them to a page that shows personalized product suggestions and recommendations based on their search query. You can further optimize this page by clubbing two or three items that are frequently bought together or showing the best sellers.
#4 Dedicated Landing Pages
Amazon creates dedicated landing pages for its top products. For instance, the dedicated page for OnePlus 7T contains all the specifications in detail, screen resolution, camera and additional information to convince and encourage users to make a purchase.
Based on the data gathered from your internal search engine, you may want to highlight some popular products and demote products that are not. For the products that are getting a huge number of visits, you may want to create a particular landing page for that product to make it stand out among other similar items.
Conclusion
As we just saw, having an internal search engine for your website is not something that can be avoided. It is a surefire way to improve conversions and boost your sales by allowing users to have more control over the search results.
