From Search Box to Sales Booster: Leveraging Advanced Site Search Tools to Stimulate Sales

Recent studies show: Shoppers who use site search convert two to three times as often as those who don’t. In contrast, visitors typically leave a site after just two minutes if they can’t find what they are looking for. In addition to increasing conversion rates, advanced site search engine technology is also proven to boost ticket size guiding customers to their desired destination and offering up a number of additional, relevant purchase choices along the way.

In short: Effective site search is key to online retail success, and most e-businesses strive to continuously improve this critical functionality. As a result, advances in site search abound.

Innovative features accelerate the search process, increase result relevance, and enhance the shopping experience. They also help retailers merchandize more effectively.

But not all site search software is created equal, and not all recent developments match the requirements of a particular website. Many retailers struggle to discover what’s right for them. This is where ECommerce Partners comes in. We specialize in advanced site search helping online retailers find and implement the perfect solution for their needs.

Offering Maximum Speed, Convenience and Relevance

There are several features designed to step up the speed and convenience of the search process while at the same time making results more relevant. Examples include a powerful Auto Complete functionality, which suggests a number of possible results along with product pictures as soon as shoppers enter the first few letters of their query, and innovative AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) technology that improves the user experience during refined searches by price, color, brand or size in large product catalogues. At ECommerce Partners, we will help you select and implement all the features that make searching your site more efficient and user-friendly.

Support Instant Conversions

Reducing the number of steps between initial search and checkout has proven critical to increase conversions. At ECommerce Partners, we therefore specialize in streamlining the search and purchase process. Examples include adding in the item price in the search results so prospects can quickly compare available options without having to click through to each product page, and featuring an “add to cart/buy now” button in the search result so customers who know what they want can quickly complete the purchase.

Merchandize More Effectively

Advanced site search can also support your business strategies and help you market more effectively. Typically search results are ranked according to item popularity. However, you may be more interested in ranking yours by price, date, brand, or any other criteria. At ECommerce Partners, we put you in control and let you change the order of the displayed results, as needed. For example, if you run a sale on some of your products or want to advertise a special promotion, you can feature the pertinent items first in your search results.

Use Your Site Search to Improve Your Ebusiness

At ECommerce Partners we will also help you to integrate your site search with your analytics tool of choice. This way, you can track and compare different metrics to identify areas of promise and of concern. Check your top search items to understand what products are doing well and what new items your customers are looking for. Analyze search items with poor results to assess possible shortcomings in your portfolio or your online language. Compare the conversion rate and average ticket size of site search users versus the rest of your online visitors. And use all the information you gleaned to continuously improve your online venture.

Increase Search Comfort

To encourage the use of site search, it is best to place a prominent search box on each page of your site. That said, we usually advise our clients to test different box sizes and positions and find out what works best for their users. Similarly we make sure to design and test optimized result pages with most results featured above the fold to minimize scrolling. We perform multivariate testing and utilize tools such as Google Website Optimizer to track how changes to the layout, format and appearance of your results pages affect your conversion rates, and find the optimal solution that invariably leads to significant upticks in conversion rates and ticket sizes.

Provide Convincing Visuals

Advanced site search lets you enhance the shopping experience with helpful visuals. Offer a color palette in your search results and invite customers to simply click on their preferred choice to view an item in the desired color, enhance your Auto Complete results with visuals, displaying a picture next to all suggested items, highlight available product videos with a special button or other icon in your search results, and feature mouse–over pop ups to let shoppers zoom in on various item details without having to click on each page -- the possibilities of enhancing your site search with visuals are virtually endless. As we come to understand the specific requirements of your online customers, we can deliver custom script enhancements or SaaS (Software as a Service) technology.

Support Mobile Search

As more and more people use smart phones to shop online, mobile site search is rapidly gaining momentum. Given the small screen size, mobile search usually features fewer refinements, sorting, and viewing options. Offering highly relevant results therefore becomes all the more important. If you have a mobile site or are looking to develop one and want to include targeted site search functionality, we can help.

Promote your Site

If you want your customers to automatically check your site each time they are on the lookout for a product you sell, provide specific code that your customers can add to their Internet search box on their favorite web browser. This feature is helpful to your clients and also to your help-desk staffers who search your site on behalf of your customers.

Enhancing your ecommerce venture with innovative search features will pay off for both yourself and your customers. At ECommerce Partners, we will advise you on how to leverage advanced site search features to optimize your customers’ shopping experience while boosting your bottom line.