On-site search continues to be an unsung hero for eCommerce merchants, driving higher conversion rates than browsing alone. But most brands don’t consider on-site search a top priority, even as the rapid growth of mobile shopping makes efficient wayfinding more important than ever. To remedy this problem, merchants should devote what resources they can to making their on-site search “mobile-first”.
In a world where “Google” is a verb as well as a noun, close to two-thirds of the online population uses the Internet to research products and brands, according to technology researcher Forrester. Up to 30% of shoppers specifically use on-site search on eCommerce sites, according to marketing services firm eConsultancy; they’re often late-stage researchers ready to hone in on specific products to purchase, which partially explains why visits that include on-site search lead to orders at a rate 1.8 times higher than visits based purely on browsing, eConsultancy says.
But even faced with these results, many online brands give on-site search short shrift when it comes to prioritizing investments. When asked by Forrester to rank technology priorities, just 13% of online professionals rank on-site search as a top priority.
That’s a shame, because with the rise of mobile commerce, the need is increasingly acute for search tools that help shoppers winnow options efficiently and accurately — taking into account prior shopping behavior, location and other factors to maximize relevance — all within the constraints of smartphone screen real estate. More than one in five participants in the MarketLive/E-Tailing Group 2015 Consumer Shopping Survey said that faster mobile search would spur them to do more shopping via their devices.
As merchants move into 2016 planning, they should examine whether their on-site search tools are up to the challenge, and optimize them accordingly. Among the top “mobile-first” guidelines to apply:
Don’t make them (re)type. Saving keystrokes is crucial on mobile devices, where shoppers are looking to avoid the tedium of pecking out keyword terms on tiny touchscreens. When it comes to on-site search in particular, avoiding repeated entry of search terms is crucial — which means fine-tuning settings to be both more forgiving and more precise. On-site search should:
- Offer helpful autocomplete suggestions. The key word here is “helpful.” As shoppers type a search term, they should see suggestions that match with relevant products and categories and that don’t overlap. Merely displaying search log matches isn’t sufficient, as they can be repetitive and lead to zero results pages; merchants should curate the autocomplete suggestions for popular terms to display a meaningful set of options.
- Enable search by product number/product ID/catalog ID. More than 15% of top eCommerce sites in a recent survey by Smashing Magazine failed to enable this function, which is especially critical for in-store researchers using information on the shelf tag to locate relevant online product content.
- Account for misspellings. Especially on mobile devices, it’s all too easy for stray characters to find their way into search terms. Merchants should compensate by offering “Did you mean …?” suggestions on the results page — especially when it comes to specific product names, which 18% of sites in the Smashing survey failed to accommodate with alternate suggestions.
- Find matches for the terms shoppers know. Fully 70% of sites in the Smashing survey insisted that shoppers use the site’s lingo in their keyword terms — failing to return results for “hair dryers” as opposed to “blow dryers”, for example. Learning a site’s preferred terminology through multiple trial-and-error search attempts is a tedious game mobile shoppers especially are unlikely to play for long.
- Display the original keyword term in the search box on the results page. More than two-thirds of shoppers need two or more queries to locate their desired results, Smashing found, but just one-third of sites enabled them to quickly narrow their results further by adding additional qualifiers to their original search term, without retyping it.
Offer advanced sort and filter, designed for small screens. Faceted search, which enables shoppers to cull search results using product attributes such as size or color, can be invaluable for maximizing search efficiency. But merchants must implement faceted search thoughtfully and design the presentation with small screens in mind. Merchants should:
- Get the right mix of attributes. Long lists of facets are off-putting, leading more than half of participants in a study by the E-Tailing Group/Compare Metrics to say that eCommerce sites are overwhelming. That’s doubly true on the small screen, where scrolling through an endless selection of filtering options is onerous. Unless their audience demands it, merchants should avoid using overly technical attributes while ensuring shoppers can see what results provide the right fit or style for their needs. At the same time, merchants shouldn’t overlook merchandising- and fulfillment-related attributes, such as the option to display items qualifying for free shipping — and on mobile devices, factoring in offline fulfillment options, such as items available for in-store pickup, is crucial.
- Enable selection of more than one attribute before narrowing results. Merchants should give shoppers the option of selecting multiple facets before sending the filter command, so that the mobile site doesn’t grind to a halt processing multiple requests at once to narrow the search results set.
- Make it easy to back out. Fully 73% of participants in the E-Tailing/Compare Metrics study said they believed that selecting specific attributes or filters would eliminate products that were actually relevant to their needs, so it’s crucial to offer a quick means of restoring the full results set. On mobile devices, that means prominently displaying which facets are in play and giving shoppers the option to eliminate them on the spot without having to return to the full attribute list, which is often tucked away in an accordion-style menu.
MarketLive merchant Wilson’s Leather flags its faceted search options at the top of the search results page, and gives shoppers a succinct list of options to choose from. Once selected, facets are displayed prominently and can be eliminated individually using the X next to each, or all selections can be reversed with the “Reset all” option.
Localize the results. On mobile devices, context is everything — and that imperative extends to on-site search, where combining product results with geographic data based on device location can provide a new level of relevance for shoppers. Localized results are especially important for brick-and-mortar retailers, who should incorporate options such as in-store availability as faceted search attributes.
Brands without physical store outlets can also take advantage of geographic data to increase on-site search relevance. One way to do so is via fulfillment options — for example, the ability to filter results to display products that can be delivered to the shopper’s region in time for Christmas, or items that are available for overnight delivery. Another is to highlight matching products that are local best-sellers, or to
As with faceted search, it’s crucial for merchants to ensure that shoppers can always access the “generic” search results that aren’t influenced by geographic input, whether by re-sorting the results set or switching to a different tab displaying all matches available both online and offline. And as always, merchants must seek permission to access geographic location data and to message how the brand intends to use the information to improve relevance, so that the on-site search results don’t raise flags when it comes to privacy.
Watch for more 2016 planning guidance in the months to come, and meantime, let us know how your on-site search strategy has evolved to serve mobile shoppers — and do they use it?
