Selecting the right e-commerce search engine is crucial for the success of your online store. Your internal search engine is often the thin line between a website visitor converting into a sale or bouncing away, lost forever to a competitor.
Unlike in physical stores, online shoppers are not shown around by an assistant. They have to find things for themselves. If your content engine is too slow or provides irrelevant information, they’ll get frustrated and drop off — leading to lost revenue opportunities.
In this article, we’ll discuss eight important things to look out for when choosing an e-commerce site search solution to ensure it’s the right fit for your business.
What is an E-Commerce Search Engine?
An e-commerce search engine is a function integrated into your retail store to help visitors find products easily. It uses features like keyword research, filters, and sorting options to serve relevant, accurate, and quick results to your customers.
Some e-commerce search engines also offer personalized results based on a user’s past behavior, preferences, or demographics. For example, a returning customer might see a different set of search results than a first-time visitor based on their previous interactions with the site.
What are the Benefits of an E-Commerce Site Search Solution?
Adding a site search solution to your e-commerce website will:
1. Improve user experience
An e-commerce site search solution makes it easier and quicker for website visitors to find what they want. Instead of scrolling through tens or hundreds of pages to find a specific product, customers can simply input product keywords into the search engine to find information quickly and easily.
Take Gemini Computers, for example. It has many product categories with multiple listings — which makes manual searching time-consuming and frustrating. Instead, customers can use the search box and filter results to find what they need on time. They can even view the most popular searches to see what users like them are looking for.
This significantly improves their overall shopping experience on the site, and a positive user experience reduces frustration and obstacles in the path to purchase.
2. Boost E-Commerce Conversions
A Forrester report found that online visitors who use a website’s internal search engines are 2-3 times more likely to convert than non-searchers. This is because they often have a clear intent to buy. Once they find what they’re looking for, they will likely purchase it.
Higher conversions lead to increased sales, which translates into more revenue for your e-commerce business. You can use this revenue to enhance the customer experience by improving the site search engine, expanding your product ranges, or experimenting with new marketing channels.
3. Reduce Your Website’s Bounce Rate
Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate can affect your website’s visibility in organic search results — making it harder for people to find your e-commerce store online. It signals to search engines like Google that your website lacks relevant information for your target audience.
Providing relevant search results through an effective site search solution can significantly lower your website’s bounce rate. When visitors can easily search for and discover relevant products, they will likely spend more time surfing and engaging with content on your online store.
What to Consider When Choosing an Internal Search Engine for Your Online Store
Now that you understand the benefits of a site search solution, let’s get into what to look out for when choosing one for your e-commerce site.
1. Supported Search Functions
Ensure that the site search solution offers comprehensive search functions that make it as easy as possible for users to find relevant content and products on your website. At the very least, it should have:
- Autocomplete and suggestions: as online shoppers type in the search box, the site search engine should suggest products or categories based on their input. Some internal search engines enable you to set popular or trending items to the top of the list.
- Auto-synonyms: it should recognize synonyms and common misspellings and suggest contextually relevant terms to ensure users find the right product even if they don’t know the exact name.
- Faceted search: website visitors should be able to apply search filters, such as product categories, price and size ranges, or colors, to find more relevant results.
- Multi-lingual support: the site search solution should be able to provide search results in different languages. This is super useful when you have an international e-commerce site and want to provide language-specific search results.
- Progressive ranking: it should track how users interact with the search results, such as clicks, time spent on a page, conversions, and more. You can use this data to refine product rankings in future search results.
Advanced site search solutions like AddSearch also provide an e-commerce recommendation engine that suggests products to visitors based on specific criteria, such as frequently bought-together items and product attributes like pricing. For example, you can automatically recommend products within a particular price range to shoppers based on their last-viewed items. This enhances their shopping experience and increases in-store conversions.
Related: What is faceted search, and how does it affect conversions?
2. Compatibility With Your E-Commerce Platform
Choose a site search solution compatible with the e-commerce platform where your online store is hosted. That way, integrating the search engine will not disrupt your website’s workflow or performance.
The best bet is to opt for an internal search engine with multi-platform compatibility. That way, even if you switch e-commerce platforms down the road, you won’t have to migrate site search solutions, too. It saves you time and money.
AddSearch, for example, is compatible with popular e-commerce website providers like Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and more. For example, our search plugin for Shopify is self-learning and lets users add products to their cart right from the search results.
Here’s the complete list of supported e-commerce and content management systems for AddSearch.
3. Pricing
Pricing is super important when choosing an e-commerce website search engine. You want a solution that matches your budget while providing the essential features required for a smooth website search experience.
When evaluating site search pricing, look beyond the numbers. Instead, focus on what you get with each pricing plan. Some site search solutions look cheap on the surface but lock important features in higher tiers, forcing you to upgrade and pay more.
With AddSearch, you get the core site search features on our basic plan. Upgrading to a higher tier gives you access to advanced capabilities, such as implementation support and multiple search indices. We also offer a 14-day free trial to test things out before committing.
Here’s a full breakdown of AddSearch’s pricing plans and what you get with each one.
4. Ease of Use
Ease of use is vital for your team and visitors. If the search function is complex or difficult to navigate, users might get frustrated and leave the site.
Similarly, a site search engine that’s easy to set up and manage reduces the time and resources needed for installation and ongoing maintenance. This is especially important for small businesses or teams with limited technical expertise.
Luckily, AddSearch is easy to set up and use. We provide detailed documentation walking you through the implementation process. Plus, our technical support team is always available to answer questions and help you through any issues you encounter.
Here’s what one of our customers says about their experience.
“Setting up and managing AddSearch is easy; it would even be easy for someone with limited technical experience. The interface is intuitive and user-friendly, and there’s documentation that walks you through the process.”
5. Speed
There are more than 26 million online stores globally. We’ll bet that many of them sell products similar to yours. In other words, your potential customers are spoiled for choice. If they search for an item on your website and the results take too long, they’ll shop elsewhere. That’s why speed should be at the top of your priority list when choosing an e-commerce search engine.
Many site search solutions guarantee speed, but it’s best to test things yourself. If the tool doesn’t offer a free trial, read customer reviews to see how users like you rate its speed. For example, here’s what AddSearch users say about how quickly our e-commerce search engine provides relevant answers.
“My company wanted a responsive search tool that had the ability to process new pages quickly. AddSearch has exceeded our expectations. Not only does it provide beautiful image and text results, but when I’ve had questions or concerns their customer service has always responded and addressed my concerns quickly and completely. I would recommend AddSearch to anyone. It’s easy to use, updates quickly, and the customer service is top notch.”
6. Security
A site search solution often has access to a large amount of data, including customer information, proprietary content, and other sensitive details. If it’s insecure, this data could be exposed to unauthorized users, leading to data breaches, and you might lose customers’ trust.
We recommend choosing a SOC2-compliant search engine like AddSearch, that guarantees data protection against unauthorized access at all times. AddSearch also implements personal security features, such as multi-factor authentication, as an added layer of protection.
7. Analytics
Implementing a site search solution is only one piece of the puzzle. You also need a way to measure its performance to see what’s working and what requires improvement. That’s where an analytics dashboard comes in handy.
A comprehensive content engine analytics dashboard lets you track the following metrics:
- Popular keywords: the terms that visitors mostly input into the content engine.
- No click keywords: search terms that return irrelevant results.
- Keywords returning no results: missing content.
- The total number of searches and clicks.
- The average position of clicked search results.
These insights will help you improve your site search experience. For example, you can create content for keywords with zero search results. When visitors search for these terms, they will find helpful information and continue shopping instead of quitting your online store.
If you use AddSearch, you can pull your site search data into your Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics dashboard for a 360-degree view of your website performance.
8. Customization
A good site search engine doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb on your website. Instead, it matches your brand aesthetics. This means you can adjust the look and feel of the search bar, results page, and other elements to match your site’s design.
However, customization goes beyond aesthetics. You should also be able to tailor the search experience to meet your users’ specific needs, such as adjusting search algorithms, refining search filters, and displaying results that align with user expectations.
AddSearch gives you complete control over your e-commerce content engine’s appearance and functionalities. You can choose from our search UI library or customize your search engine style using CSS. You can also add widgets to modify general search results. Here are a few examples from our customers.
- Homey implemented a beautiful search-as-you-type solution using AddSearch’s API tool.
- ESAB uses AddSearch to drive website sales and higher conversion rates.
Transform Your E-Commerce Site Search Experience With AddSearch
AddSearch provides powerful site search solutions to enhance user engagement and boost conversion rates.
Our lightning-fast content engine delivers accurate product results that keep visitors on your site. It also offers advanced filtering and analytics options to optimize your search performance continuously.
Upgrade your search functionality with AddSearch and turn every visitor into a potential customer. See all of AddSearch’s features for e-commerce businesses.
E-Commerce Search Engine FAQs
Find answers to frequently asked questions about e-commerce content engines.
1. What is the Best Search Engine for Online Shopping?
AddSearch is the best content search engine for online shopping websites. It’s easy to set up, offers full customization options, and integrates with numerous e-commerce platforms, including Shopify and Magento.
2. How are Site Search Engines Useful in E-Commerce?
Site search solutions like AddSearch help website visitors find relevant product information quickly and easily. This streamlines the shopping experience, making it more efficient and user-friendly.
3. What are the Features of a Good E-Commerce Search Engine?
A good e-commerce search engine should be fast, accurate, and capable of handling complex queries. It should offer intelligent autocomplete suggestions, typo tolerance, and support for synonyms to help users find what they need, even with imperfect input.
