The need and importance of on-site search
Getting straight to the point, have you ever thought about how habitual it has become to use Google for searching out things? Whether it’s a simple definition, a complex math question, some mind boggling news, or price of latest gadgets, Google has answers for all and search engines like this have made the entire searching thing quite quick and simple. A number of online retailers overlook the significance of the power of search as they are merchants after all. But if similar mechanism is applied to web-stores, it can lead towards an enhanced UX and thus would aid in accelerating the revenue.
Getting started with on-site search
How often have you left a site just because its search box was slow, did not give you any results, or showed up a hard to digest list of contents? Users expect search boxes to deliver quick and easy to comprehend results that help them to go through the site content in a seamless way. Marketers and online businesses can utilize this knowledge for their benefit by putting up search boxes at their sites to optimize the user experience. It can also serve as a highly effective marketing strategy.
When thinking to put up a search box at your site, make sure you fix it in the header as no one likes to make a search for the search, right? Users expect the searching to be quicker that is why incorporating an auto-correct or auto-complete feature would further facilitate the on-site search experience. Also, do not forget to keep the search prominent on the site’s mobile version as a huge number of visitors explore web on hand held devices.
Interesting and useful suggestions for effective marketing
A good piece of advice to all retailers and merchants serving online is to avoid embedding “NO RESULTS FOUND” thing in the search boxes instead provide the customer with similar products or some alternative suggestion to keep them going through the site.
An effective search box has a great impact on conversion rate; users who make use of a search function lead towards an average conversion rate of 2.4% as compared to 1.7% rate of users who do not utilize the search. This is a sound evidence to convince retailers and marketers that incorporating an on-site search feature would help to retain customers and earn heavy revenues.
