Having an effective on-site search can make a huge difference to any ecommerce business, helping to improve the customer experience and boost the conversion rate of the ecommerce store.
By implementing an advanced on-site search, online retailers can gain a big insight into customer behaviour, and also increase the number of conversions coming through the site.
Up to 30% of visitors use on-site search, making it a key part of your ecommerce store. But what features of an advanced on-site search that provides relevant results can help boost your conversion rate?
Searches Lead to Purchases
Users which use the search function on an online store are more likely to make purchases, shown to be up to 5 or 6 times more likely to convert than the average non-site search user.
Simply by having an online search that finds the correct products will increase your conversion rate.
Users that use search to find products, rather than menus or other forms of navigation, have more intent to purchase. Simply because those that use the navigation menu are simply browsing, whereas those who are searching know what they are looking for.
Advanced Search Reaps Better Results
If your on-site search is poor, then it’s likely your customers aren’t finding what they are looking for, and going to a competitor that quickly allows them to find desired products.
Compare your search results page exit rate to your average exit rate. Your search results page should have a fairly low exit rate in comparison, as customers should find exactly what they are looking for. If it’s higher than average, then it suggests they aren’t finding what they want. You would hope this would be one of the lowest exit rates due to the level of intent. It’s also worth looking at your analytics for zero results.
Cost-Effective Solution to Increase Conversions
Many businesses and marketers focus on gaining traffic in order to increase online sales, which is still a good strategy. However, increasing the traffic to your site can cost more if your on-site search isn’t as good as it can be.
Implementing an advanced on-site search can cost a fraction of attracting more customers, in order to encourage more of your existing traffic to convert into paying customers. Econsultancy showed that site search visitors added up to almost 13.8% of the overall revenue.
On-site search can also increase the spend of each customer, by encouraging customers to find additional products, and increasing the spend of each customer.
If you spend money on traffic acquisition, but they aren’t converting, you won’t see the relevant results.
Of course, you should focus on both areas. But ensuring your conversion rate is as high as possible should be paramount. If you don’t focus on up-selling, retention, and boosting your conversion rate, then the extra traffic goes to waste.
Searchers are in Late-Stage of Buying Cycle
If a customer is searching for a product, they are usually searching to judge the price, availability or delivery that you offer. This is clearly much further down the buying cycle than users who are simply browsing.
They have already found your website, and are looking for something specific that they know, or assume, you stock. Now it’s down to providing relevant results to ensure a customer converts.
User-Friendly Searches Boost Conversions
At the end of the day, providing an on-site search that provides users with appropriate results is simply a part of a user-friendly website experience.
If potential customers cannot find the products they are looking for, then they will end up leaving your site unhappy.
However, if they can find products, or similar products, that they are after, this helps boost the user experience.
Even if they don’t convert there and then, a great user experience helps to boost retention. If they’ve found what they are looking for, perhaps they will mull over the price point and return.
But if you’re providing a great experience, this alone is enough reason for a potential customer to return to your website. If they have a poor experience, then they will definitely think twice before returning to your online store.
Allowing the customer to control their online shopping experience helps boost loyalty and the retention rate.
Ensure customers can find items in a streamlined fashion, and that you can provide the most appropriate possible results.
Suggested Products
If your on-site search provides suggestions, then you can help customers find more products that are relevant to their search query.
Suggesting the most relevant products as a customer searches on your website can help them make decisions, and encourages conversions.
This can also help you boost the time spent on your website, as customers will see product recommendations related to their searches. Overall, they should be more satisfied, providing a better buying journey.
Autocomplete Helps Boost Conversions
If your on-site search features an auto-complete function, offering suggestions once customers begin typing, this helps to speed the process.
This also ensures customers don’t misspell product names, and ending up with zero results.
It saves a lot of effort on the customer’s part, and helps to speed up the overall search process, so customers find desired products faster.
Filters Can Help Customers Find Perfect Products
By allowing customers to filter down to specific products they are looking for, they are much more likely to convert.
While a simple on-site search cannot provide this, our advanced search helps users to find the exact product they want. Which helps speed up the buying process, and increase conversions.
Inform Your Digital Strategy
While having a quality, advanced on-site search helps your conversion rate, it can also help you improve your overall digital strategy.
As you will see what people are searching for, you can view the most searched terms and products, and use this data to your advantage.
You can create content that focuses on key products or search terms. Also, by seeing which are your most popular products or pages, you can market this to ensure customers find you online.
Help Customers Find Products Fast with Our On-site Search
See the benefits of our on-site search by requesting a demo – read more here or get in touch today to find out more.
