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Effective site search functionality on a company’s website is an increasingly important component of a successful digital strategy.
Companies are typically increasing their investment in site search because they recognise the range of benefits that effective technology can bring to their businesses.
Terms that consumers type into a company’s site search box can give a company huge insight into the users’ behaviour and give the company invaluable data to be learned from.
Used successfully, this information can increase conversions and improve customer retention.
During a recent Econsultancy roundtable with site search experts, interesting advice was given with regards to improving the site search experience for users and increase conversions.
This advice compliments trends found by Econsultancy through company research to provide a diverse range of key takeaways.
People who use site search are more likely to purchase compared to those who use standard navigation, as they are shopping with intent.
They are often in late-stage buying mode as information gathering is completed, and they want to view product content to satisfy other buying motivators such as price, availability and delivery charges.
These consumers have found the website and are attempting to find something specific. The search box comes with the expectation of delivering relevant results, and consequently promotes the search option as a preferred choice.
The expected result is a frictionless journey to a product detail page.
Conversion rates through site search can be up to 50% higher than the average. According to a recent Econsultancy blog on site search, search performs very well when put into place on a site.
Visitors converted at 4.63% versus the websites’ average of 2.77%, which is 1.8 times more effective. Consequently, visitors using search contributed 13.8% of the revenues.
Industry tip:
Site search needs to be data driven. It can only work if the site has been tested time and time again. Every little change to the site needs to be tested before implementation to ensure conversions.
Site search is a key interaction point for customers, and can make or break a shopping experience for them. Customers who can’t find the information they’re looking for leave the site unsatisfied.
Site search can provide data and content services, customer analytics data and merchandising functionalities such as promotions.
When used by shoppers intent on finding the right product, search punches above its weight in terms of sales and conversions. Typcially, up to 30% of visitors will use the site search box, and each of these users is showing a possible intent to purchase by entering product names or codes.
By offering a user-friendly site search experience, businesses can help customers find items they’re looking for in a more streamlined way. This places visitors in control of their own shopping experience which helps increase customer loyalty and makes then more likely to convert and return to the site for more purchases.
Industry tip:
If you know what speed connection the user is on, you can tailor the homepage accordingly. Make the experience a friendly one by omitting videos and images that may take too long to load. Have the search box centrally located, especially on mobile. It’s all about encouraging them to make that sale.
Displaying search suggestions on the search results page can give visitors more ideas for what to search for. These suggestions can encourage visitors to view more products.
A post written earlier in the year on site search choice states that about 25% of site visitors will click on a search suggestion.
Grid views are useful for product searches that generate many results. By allowing visitors to choose which format they prefer, they will enjoy having the flexibility in how results are displayed.
An easy journey for a customer can ensure:
Some retailers use an auto-complete tool which begins to offer suggestions when users have entered a few characters into the search box.
This has a number of advantages: it speeds up the search process for users, it helps them to avoid misspellings, and it also ensures that customers’ searches will return a product result.
Autosuggest provides a real boost to search conversion rates. Repeat users begin to rely on site search autosuggest and autocorrect to know the correct spelling of words for them. When it is well implemented, auto-complete can save customers a lot of effort, in addition to speeding up the search process.
In this example from Waterstones, shoppers who can’t remember the spelling of a famous Russian author’s name only need to get the first four or five letters right. 
Industry tip:
We find that 5-6% of our site search users convert through site search. We know that if they have a bad experience with our site, they’ll go straight to our competitors so we offer them the best experience possible. We actually found that by attaching predictive text and thumbnail images to the search, we can convert two to three times more.
Effective site search means better usability, so customers can find things more quickly. This can translate into higher sales, as customers who find what they are looking for easily are more likely to make a purchase, while site search also offers opportunities for merchandising.
Higher conversion rates can also be attributed to autocomplete. More intuitive search and navigation means higher conversion rates. According to a Screen Pages study, use of the search box results in an average conversion rate of 2.4%, against a site average of 1.7%.
If customers have searched for a product that the retailer just doesn’t stock, it doesn’t have to end with a ‘no results found’ page. However, zero results pages can be a valuable source of information for retailers.
Tracking these pages via analytics can help retailers to fix problems with site search, and it can also inform them of the products customers are looking for that they don’t currently stock.
Industry tip:
Use the zero results page to discover new trends and then stock what is needed. Before onsies became popular, we noticed a few people searching for them on our site. We used social media to (firstly) discover what they were, and then added them to our stock. We ended up making over £65,000 just from watching our keyword search results.
Conversely, another definition of a poor result is returning hundreds or even thousands of results. This can also have a detrimental effect on the site especially if they have poor filtered navigation options to assist the user with filtering the results.
A specific example of how site search data can help improve both the site search tool and merchandising involves synonyms. Site search data provides insight into the synonyms that matter for your business.
For example, a clothes retailer may see searches for ‘jumper’, ‘pullover’, ‘sweater’ etc. which may not all yield any or the right set of results. Any decent site search tool will cater for synonyms, such as with synonym lists. By mining older search data to understand the specific terms the audience are using to find products, adjustments can be made to drive better results.
On average just 50% of site searches were successful and 40% of responding companies were not even aware of the success rates, as learned by Econsultancy and Funnelback in a Site Search Report.
Almost a third (30%) of US shoppers now use a smartphone while in-store compared to 40% in the UK, according to a new report into ‘showrooming’.
On the face of it this would appear to be a behaviour that retailers would want to try to prevent, but in reality there’s very little that stores can do to curb the consumer use of smartphones.
Furthermore, separate data taken from the new Econsultancy/BuyDesire Mobile Marketing and Commerce Report found that retailers don’t actually see showrooming as a threat to their revenues.
The report found that although 67% of companies acknowledge that the number of customers using smartphones in-store is increasing, only 11% believe that showrooming poses a threat to their business.
21% of the global population will be using mobile apps by the end of the year. Your company may need an app too, but should you build your app for iPad, iPhone or Android?
One and a half billion people will be using mobile apps by the end of the 2013, equivalent to 21% of the global population.
Of course, mobile-optimised websites are clearly vital to communicate with your audience, with the balance now tipping in favour of responsive website design, but there’s still a strong case to be made for providing one or more apps as well.
But assuming you’re ready to commit, should you go for an iPad, iPhone or Android app?
Storytelling is one of the best ways to create a bond with people, and content marketers should use it and other creative techniques to make their materials stand out.
This year the ‘Jerusalem’ cookbook is a hit. Written by an Arab and a Jew from Jerusalem who now live and work in London, more than 400,000 copies are in print in the US and UK , easily 10 times more than most other cookbooks.
What makes Jerusalem stand out is a number of things, including how tasty its recipes are, but also that it tells a story.
Of course, there is the story of a Jew and Arab from Jerusalem working together, with its unspoken suggestion that “if they can do it…”
We examine three travel marketing trends for 2023. Value-based messaging and finance-focused products, the role of travel agents and the continued rise of apps.
From retail media to data partnerships and ‘clean rooms’, FMCG brands have many opportunities to take advantage of second-party data to better target customer or prove the effectiveness of their marketing.
January 24th, 2023 | 3:00pm GMT | 10:00am EST
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