Having an internal search engine on our website is very important for several reasons.
- It improves the shopping experience
- It reduces bounce rate
- It increases conversion
It also helps our users find information or products quickly and intuitively.
It also gives us key information about the search terms our customers use to look for information on the website, helping us understand user intent and navigation efficiency on our site.
You can also track it by setting up a web analytics tool to find out, among other things:
- How many people use our search engine
- Keywords used by users
- Which pages users search from
- How many pages users view after searching
- How many people leave the site from the search results page
- How many users buy or convert after using our search engine
Many studies show that users visiting an online store prefer to use the internal search engine to find what they need, avoiding the category and subcategory menu, which is often hard to structure optimally due to the number of products. Many companies even define their product catalog structure based on their internal organization rather than on the end user, who is ultimately the one using the website.
It’s key to remember that internal search is increasingly important and even more relevant because it helps reduce bounce rate and contributes to higher conversion.
Here are some points to consider when implementing an internal search engine:
- Give it context. Use clear, descriptive text so users immediately understand it’s a search box. It should stand out within the site structure (preferably in the header) and remain visible throughout browsing.
- Autocomplete or suggestions. This feature saves users time and optimizes search results.
- Semantic search. This type of search delivers more results. Adding long-tail results makes it possible to find similar or complementary products naturally.
- Cross selling. This can also be worked on by adding attributes and relationships between substitute or complementary products.
- Optimize results. Work on synonyms or alternative words, singulars and plurals, and even spelling mistakes or typos.
- No-results page. Try to return results for as many search terms as possible and, when there are none, customize the page with product suggestions, promotional modules and links to the site’s most important categories and sections.
At Trilogi we offer an excellent internal search solution that meets every requirement for optimal performance and achieving your goals.
It’s an external solution integrated into our LogiCommerce platform called Doofinder.
The features and advantages of this search engine are:
- Typo tolerance
Search technology based on a semantic processing architecture that ensures customers find the products they’re looking for, minimizing spelling and typing errors in the search process. - Phonetic search technology
Phonetic search technology corrects terms that are misspelled but phonetically correct. - Knowledge base
Doofinder’s technology currently handles over 50 million searches. This has built an extensive knowledge base, ensuring a fully optimized service from day one. - Dynamic results
The search algorithm automatically learns from user behavior, understanding which products are most likely to sell and showing them at the top of the results. - Multilingual
Available in more than 30 languages, optimized for all of them.
We must keep in mind that our competitors are just one click away, and we can’t waste all the human and financial effort invested in acquiring users because of a poor strategy and choice of internal search engine.
What about you? Do you have an optimized internal search engine on your site? Do you know its usage results?
If you’d like more information about our products and services, feel free to contact us.
