Optimize Your Site’s Search Functionalities To Increase Conversions

If you understand good website design , you will know the importance of always having an on-site search function. You need to ensure that your site caters to visitors who know what they are searching for on your website, because these individuals are more likely to convert. Optimizing your website’s search functionalities should be a continual process, and can prevent your site from featuring poor navigation. After all, you don’t want to lose a potential customer because of that. Let’s explore a few tips to help your optimization efforts:

Include a Search Function on Every Page

Your website’s home page should not only be the page that has a search function. You should also include this functionality on your product pages or blog posts as the visitor may want to search for something later in their journey. Many companies have opted to include the search bar on every page of their website and this is a good practice.

Visitors Should Never Have to Search High and Low for the Search Bar

The position and design of your website’s search bar is very important. As a site owner, one of the best ways to optimize your search bar is by testing it. You can consider making the search bar stand out by distancing it from other similar looking functions like an email sign-up form. In addition, your search bar should be labeled with clarity. To do this, you may label it with the word “Search”. Other good alternatives include “I would like to search for…” or a simple yet obvious magnifying glass symbol. Remember who your website’s unique audiences are and make appropriate decisions from there.

Enable Autocomplete

Autocomplete is a search feature that streamlines the search experience by predicting what the visitor is searching for. It suggests a list of possible queries before the user has the chance to finish typing. This not only helps users to find what they are looking for, but can also suggest a particular item or product that they had not intended to find as complementary results.

With this feature, you can increase time spent on-site, page views and also influence conversions. A good way to display search suggestions is to also embed call-to actions. In any case, you will want your search function to adapt to your customers’ behavior and automatically produce the most relevant results.

Implement Breadcrumbs for Easier Navigation

There are occasions when website visitors want an easy way to return to a page they have just viewed, without pressing the back button. Breadcrumbs navigation features are a good solution and will prevent visitors from bouncing off the site due to frustrations with navigation.

Support & Accept Synonyms

Your website’s search functionality should be able to support synonyms as everybody searches differently. Google Site Search, for instance, is a great example as it allows users to define their search using synonyms. Google will return relevant results when a site visitor conducts a search that includes a synonym. Google will then replace that synonym with a more frequently searched-for term.