Optimize Your Website Search With These 5 Factors

1. The secrets of successful internal search
2. Conclusion

Efficient search, satisfied customers! The search is the most important function on an e-commerce platform. So says the Statista study "Purchase criteria in online shopping" that for 73% of shop visitors, the search in the shop is "particularly important". This makes the search function the number one spot, even ahead of the payment options with 71% and the design of the shop with 59%.

When the search function is used in an online shop, there is usually a concrete interest in buying. This means that the chance of a conversion is high. A good search function thus not only provides more customer satisfaction thanks to a better User Experience, but also demonstrably increases sales.

As an online retailer, it is therefore of crucial importance that you offer a user-friendly and effective search experience on your website. A functioning and optimized search for the user contributes to improving the findability of products and information and the user experience.

But optimizing the search is a complex, continuous challenge. From the technology used to the search behavior of your users, there are many factors that need to be taken into account.

In this article, our guest author Michael Wolf will show you how to optimize your e-commerce search to achieve a better user experience and increase your sales.

The secrets of successful internal search

An effective internal search is an important part of every E-commerce platform, as it allows users to quickly and easily find the desired product. But how do you make sure that your internal search is really effective and leaves your customers satisfied? Below we will show you the 5 essential influential factors that are essential for successful internal search.

1. Technology as a key to success

Technology is the heart of any search and can strongly influence the quality of the search experience. There are countless different providers on the market and all have strengths and weaknesses. But how do you find the perfect technology or suitable provider for you and your business?

It is very important that you first clarify your own requirements. Unfortunately, this is a step that many skip, but it is immensely important to ensure that the technology actually delivers what you expect. Only when you know your requirements can you select the right provider and avoid running into limits too quickly after implementing the technology.

Some features are crucial for a good search technology. These include:

• Error tolerance (e.g. when typing and spelling mistakes)
• Suggest function with matching suggestions, categories or individual products
• Filter functions for restricting search results with appropriate filtering options (e.g. by gender)
• Excellent performance and fast response times
• A back office with the ability to configure the search according to your needs. This includes amongst other things:
  • The ability to influence and optimize search results (e.g. linguistic fine-tuning such as synonyms to increase search result quality)
  • Steering the product order (ranking) in search results according to various features & criteria (e.g. popularity, margin, stock, delivery times) to present customers with an optimal search result (see also the fourth factor)
  • create redirects to landing pages for specific search queries
  • Create marketing campaigns (e.g. in the form of banners for specific search queries)

Especially in the configuration of search technology, an intuitively usable back office is important, and as a shop operator there are big differences between providers. Some offer hardly any adjustment options, while others allow deep intervention in the search logic. Of course, this requires a basic understanding of how the search function works.

When it comes to the application-specific configuration, you can optimize relatively quickly and cost-effectively if you familiarize yourself with the functionality of the product search and the search results. However, it is important to understand that it is almost impossible to set the search perfectly and then sit back and say: "Done!". It remains a continuous and iterative process to constantly optimize the search and adapt to changing conditions (e.g. new assortments, changed search behavior).

A good search technology also helps to process worse data in such a way that good results are delivered - but of course there are also limits here. If you frequently have poor results despite good data, the technology may be the cause. If the search technology can't offer a solution to recurring problems (e.g. not relevant hits at the first positions of the result), it's time to think about an alternative search provider.

The following are a selection of technologies that can improve Onsite-Search.

Open Source solutions:

Elastic Enterprise Search

OpenSearch

Solr

SaaS solutions:

Algolia

Crownpeak

Bloomreach

epoq

FactFinder

FINDOLOGIC

2. The crucial role of good product data in the Onsite-Search

To ensure your onsite search works reliably and delivers clean results, you need to pay attention to high-quality product data. Bluntly put, the rule "shit in, shit out" applies. If you feed your search with poor quality data, you can't expect great results. From a search perspective, there are certain minimum requirements for the data to ensure quality. Below are a few examples of these requirements:

Consistency

The search function works with global rules. If the data is inconsistent, it is difficult for these rules to work properly. This ranges from data taxonomy to product names to attribute names and values. For example, if you call your products "chino pants" in some cases and just "chino" in others, it will be difficult to find both products when searching for "chino pants". And maybe you even have chino pants that are just called "pants".

Coverage

Many searches assess the relevance of products for the search result based on how often the searched term appears in the product data. If the information content of the product data varies greatly from product to product, it is difficult to calculate the relevance for the search cleanly. For example, if only 70% of the jackets in a shop have the value 'jackets' in the item group data field and for the remaining 30% it says 'upper clothing', it is difficult to calculate the relevance cleanly.

Correctness

Your product data must be correct. The creation of item data is usually not without manual processes. And as we all know, manual processes are prone to errors. Spelling mistakes in the product description can lead to products not being found or ranking worse. A wrong value in a data field (e.g. sweater with the item group skirt) makes the product appear in the wrong search result. These are just two examples of possible errors in the data.

"Poor product data" in the context of this article primarily means "poor data for the search". As a shop owner, however, you cannot just optimize product data for the search. You also have to consider the requirements of the various sales channels (stationary, catalog, social media), marketing and SEO as well as the end customer. The aim is to find a good middle way - unfortunately, internal search is often neglected or forgotten altogether in practice.

3. Tracking as indispensable basis

In a world where customers are becoming more demanding and expect immediate and personalized experiences, tracking is an indispensable component for successful onsite search. Tracking allows you to track and analyze the behavior and interactions of your customers on your website and with your search. This gives you better insights into the needs and preferences of your customers in order to offer better and more relevant search results accordingly.

With the right tracking tools you can identify and understand trends and patterns in your customers' search queries and results, and thus contribute to better personalization of the search and search results.

Furthermore, good tracking can help you identify and fix errors and weaknesses in your search and optimize the search results accordingly. If a particular search query does not return relevant results, you can quickly identify and adjust the configuration of the search accordingly.

Meaningful tracking is also important if you are making major changes to your search (e.g. changing the search technology) to be able to test and evaluate them.

In summary, tracking is an important factor for successful onsite search. By analyzing your customers' search behavior on your website, you can provide personalized and relevant results, improve the user experience and ultimately increase your conversion rate.

4. Ranking of product lists: As important as the shelf position in retail

The order of the search results can be crucial for onsite search. A good ranking ensures that relevant products are found quickly and easily. But how is the ranking actually determined?

Essentially, there are two factors: the "Relevance Ranking" and the "Business Ranking". In relevance ranking, the search results are sorted based on the match between the search query and the product data. Different factors can be taken into account, such as the frequency of the search term in the product text or the relevance of the product features. In business ranking, the search results are sorted according to factors such as frequency of clicks, number of sales, margin, availability, return ratio, novelty of a product, etc.

Online shops typically use a combination of both approaches. However, since too many factors can neutralize each other, it is better to focus specifically on a few criteria. These should coincide with the company's goals and the target group of the shop.

The ranking of the search results page is the most important adjustment lever within the search. The position of a product on the search results page is crucial, as the clicks decrease very strongly from row to row and only a fraction of the visitors on search results pages scroll or delve deeper into the search results. This is similar to the big search engines Ecosia, Google and Bing, where hardly anyone clicks on the second page of search results.

Regardless of the ranking logic used, it is important that the ranking is regularly checked and optimized. This can be done using A/B tests or user feedback. The use of machine learning is also often used to improve the ranking.

In summary it can be said that the ranking of search result lists is a complex topic that requires a lot of experience and know-how. A good onsite search should be tailored to the needs of the customer and regularly optimized in order to achieve optimal ranking.

5. Usability

The success of a product search not only depends on the technical implementation of the search, but also on its usability. Customers expect an intuitive, fast and error-free search to find the desired product quickly and easily. And the demands of users on the usability of search have greatly increased in recent years due to the frequent use of functional search engines. Below, we present some usability aspects to consider when implementing the product search.

Search form
The search form is the entry point to the product search. It should be prominently placed and easy to find. The users should be able to enter their search request quickly and easily.

An auto-complete function (Suggest) supports users in entering their search request and helps to refine their search queries. The auto-complete should suggest relevant search terms and help the customers find the right product faster. The suggestions should be tailored to the products in the shop and possibly also include similar search terms.

Search results page
The search results page should be clearly structured and provide users with a quick overview of the found products with the most important information. These include title, price, image and the available variants.

Zero hit page
If the search does not return any results, the users should also be notified. Also, it should be avoided to show other products that are not suitable for them. When users land on a zero hit page, it is initially important to communicate to them that this is not a mistake on their part. It should help the users to escape the "dead end" and try to keep them in the shop. The following measures can support this:

• Give tips on formulating a new search query
• Suggest alternative search queries
• Display customer service contact information
• Offer entry points back into the assortment (e.g. recommendations, top sellers)

Sorting and filter function
The sorting and filter function in an online shop is a crucial tool to support customers in their product search. It allows users to sort the results by relevant criteria and further narrow down (e.g., price, brand, color, size, or availability). A multiple selection in filters is especially important for customers.

Performance
The performance of the product search is another important factor. The search queries should be executed quickly and flawlessly. A slow search can lead users to leave the site and continue their search with another provider.

Overall, the usability of the product search is a decisive success factor. A user-friendly search can contribute to users staying longer on the site, viewing more products and ultimately completing a purchase.

Conclusion

Are you ready to improve your product search to increase customer satisfaction and sales? The 5 factors - Technology, Tracking, Product Data, Ranking and Usability - significantly contribute to the success of product search. Powerful technology ensures a fast and accurate search. Tracking enables understanding of the user behavior and continuous optimization of the search. Product data is the centrepiece of onsite search and significantly influences the quality of the search results. The ranking of the search results determines the relevance and the order in which products are displayed. The usability of the search influences the user experience and is a crucial factor for success.

If you focus on these factors and continually optimize your onsite search, you will notice a positive effect on customer satisfaction and sales.