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3 Ways To Improve Profit With On Site Search Engine

Feb 24, 2016   •   3 Min Read

Your Bigcommerce site’s search is screaming at you, but what is it saying?

Our benchmarking has shown that visitors who interact with site search are 3-5 times more likely to become customers and of those orders, the average order value (AOV) is 25 to 50% higher than normal.

But how many times have you gone to a site to search for a particular item, only to be disappointed by the lackluster - or nonexistent - results? Reality is, if your search isn’t working for you, it might be working against you.

That’s why I’ve put together three sure-fire ways to make your Bigcommerce site search scream, “PROFIT!

How to Make Your BigCommerce Site Search Scream "Profit!"

Use the Right Data

In order for site search to fulfill its promises, you have to take full advantage of its data. I strongly suggest spending a good amount of time with your Top 100 Searches report.

To do this, view the Search Terms report to see the top 100 keyword searches on your site. You can also do this for total searches. Then, move to the eCommerce tab and review reports by total revenue. Export those reports into Excel and type these searches into your site exactly as entered. Ask yourself:

  • Do you like what you see?
  • Are you showing too many products? Too few?
  • Are your priority products showing?
  • Are your top selling products at the top of the results?

Bigcommerce also offers three critical reports within its native site search tool:

Keywords Without Results Description

This report provides you with a list of terms customers searched for that did not give them any results.

Benefit

This report will tell you if you need to add important keywords to your product descriptions, if customers are looking for a discontinued item, or if you need to carry a product that is currently not in your inventory.

Worst Performing Keywords

This report provides you with a list of terms customers searched for that did return results; however, customers did not click on any of the results.

Benefit

To get the most out of this report, review the keywords listed for any that provide you with an idea of what the customer was looking for when using that term. Then, perform a search using that term to see which products are returned. You can then add that keyword to any products you would like returned if a client searches for that term.

Search Term Corrections

This report provides you with a list of search terms which customers entered that caused them to receive a “Did you mean: ?” suggestion, which they then clicked.

Benefits

Check this report to see if there are common typos or errors that customers make when searching for a particular item. For example, customers may commonly misspell “vacuum” as “vacuum.” In this case, you would want to add “vacuum” to the keyword list for your vacuums.

If you want to take your analytics to new heights, I suggest investing in SearchSpring, which you can find through Bigcommerce’s robust Apps Marketplace.

SearchSpring offers advanced analytics tools and pairs them up with Google Analytics for you so you can view all your analytics in one place, allowing you to make better data-driven adjustments in a shorter timeframe.

Let the People Filter

Not all filtering tools are created equal. Customers want to be able to filter products by several different specs at the same time.

Consider Charlie. Charlie is looking for a new pair of boots. He knows he wants a pair of black or grey boots made by RedWing or Clark’s in size 11 or 11 1/2. By using multi-select, customizable filters (such as those provided by SearchSpring), Charlie is able to filter out all the site search results for “men’s boots” to only those boots he knows he is likely to purchase. This not only improves Charlie’s experience with your site (improving retention), but also improves the likelihood of a purchase.

An added benefit of SearchSpring’s multi-select filters are the customizable formats for different specs, which add visual appeal and make it easy for Charlie to select his parameters.

SearchSpring Filtering SearchSpring's Multi-Select Filters

Give Them a Rich Experience

Consumers today are accustomed to Google completing their sentences. What Google doesn’t do, but your site can, is offer a rich auto-complete experience where your customers see live product result suggestions complete with product images and pricing. And as we all know, pictures sell product.

According to SearchSpring, one-third of customers will click on an image suggestion offered during auto-complete. And once the customer has clicked through to the product page, they’ve been shown to have a conversion rate as much as four times higher than non-site search users.

Rich Auto Complete The Republic of Tea's Rich Auto Complete

By listening to your analytics, making proper adjustments, and adding elements to improve the user experience, you will be well on your way to hearing the sweet sounds of “cha-ching!” coming from your site search.


Want even more tips to improve your bottom line? Download our e-book Supercharge your eCommerce Site Search or register for our upcoming webinar Meet Bigcommerce Enterprise: 5 Ways to Increase Profit in 2016.

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