10 Ecommerce Search Bar Optimization Tips [With Examples]

Do you want to enhance the success of your eCommerce business? Stop overlooking one of the most impactful yet underutilized areas – your site’s search experience. The search bar is the gateway to connecting shoppers with products, but a subpar search will cause shoppers to become frustrated and leave the website all together

Optimizing your eCommerce search is surprisingly easy. With just a few strategic tweaks, you can reduce search abandonment, improve findability, and watch those conversions climb.

In this article, we provide 10 practical tips to search box optimization, complete with real-world examples from successful online retailers. You’ll learn how to finesse search structure, adjust autocomplete settings, and more. We’ll also cover search bar design considerations like size, placeholder text, and responsive functionality.

Follow our 10 eCommerce search box optimization tips, and transform your site’s search experience from frustrating to fantastic!

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What Is a Search Bar?

A search bar or a search box is one of the most important tools of any eCommerce website. It allows customers to easily find and discover products.

When a customer enters a product’s search perimeters into it, the website’s search engine provides relevant results. The goal is to display the products that the user is looking for as quickly and accurately as possible.

An effective site search option provides suggestions as the user types to speed up the process. It may also utilize filters or facets to refine searches by category, brand, price, etc. The design of the search bar should be large enough for multiple keywords and include a visible search icon to encourage use.

Optimizing an eCommerce search bar with relevant results and intuitive functionality is crucial to a good user experience.

10 Tips on How to Optimize Your Ecommerce Search Bar

Optimize the Placement of Your Search Bar

Where you position the search bar can greatly impact its usage and effectiveness. It should always be visible and accessible no matter where customers are on your site.

The most common placements are at the top of a page, either in the header or navigation menu. Putting the search box at the top means shoppers will see it as soon as they arrive at your site or new page. Just make sure it doesn’t get buried behind busy headers.

Optimal search bar placement means high visibility along common user journeys. Make sure your search bar is findable and customers aren’t having to hunt for it.

Ensure a Search Box Is Present on Each Page

Don’t limit your search bar to just your homepage. Place it prominently so it is visible on every product category, content, and informational page. This allows customers to easily initiate a new search if they want to. Consistent search box placement equals consistent discoverability.

Position the Search Box at the Bottom of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

After users get search results, place a search box again near the bottom of the page. This not only enables the user to easily research or refine a query without having to scroll back up, but the box remains visible as users scroll through the results pages.

Make Your Search Box Big

A spacious search promotes ease of use and encourages users to engage with the search feature, ultimately increasing the likelihood of finding desired products or information efficiently.

Add Informative Placeholder Text

Utilize straightforward and brief placeholder text within the search bar, clarifying the input expectations for users. For example, employing phrases like ‘What are you looking for today?’ ‘How can we help?’ or ‘Find people, projects and more’ offers explicit guidance regarding the search box’s intended use.

This uncomplicated yet potent strategy not only eradicates uncertainty, it enhances the intuitiveness, efficiency, and user-friendliness of the search process.

Name the Search Button and Enable ‘Enter’ Key for Search Execution

Enhance user-friendliness by adding a label to your search button, such as ‘Search’ or ‘Go.’ Often, a magnifying glass icon signifies the search button’s functionality, improving search clarity and accessibility. Also, enable ‘Enter’ key search execution.

Add Autocomplete Search to Your Box

The Autocomplete search function anticipates users’ search queries by identifying the correct keywords, including those that might be misspelled, before the user finishes typing, which is especially beneficial for challenging-to-spell search terms.

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Prioritize Keyword Suggestions

It’s more beneficial to prioritize keyword suggestions over product suggestions in your search functionality. This is because when users see keyword suggestions and click on them, they are directed to a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) with a variety of relevant results they can explore.

Moreover, product suggestions are often too specific, immediately leading users to a single product page. These are most helpful when users already know precisely what they want to buy.

For instance, if someone searches for “notebook,” keyword suggestions will guide them to a SERP where they can explore different types and brands of notebooks. However, if they select a product recommendation specifying a particular brand and type, they will be sent directly to that individual product page. Keyword suggestions cater to a broader audience, making them more useful.

Autosuggest can also propose categories, but this is usually not as helpful. Especially if your web shop has nested products under various categories. For example, if you have an “iPhone 7” listed under “technology,” and a user searches for it under the category “cell phones” on your site, the phone may not appear in the results, potentially causing the user to think that you don’t carry the product and leave your site.

Show Search History

Displaying a customer’s past search history in the search bar can be an impactful personalization feature. To implement this, retrieve keywords from the user’s search history and display them as suggestions.

It’s important to differentiate past searches from regular suggestions by using a visual cue like unique coloring. This enables users to quickly identify their own prior keywords from popular generic terms. Also make sure that customers have an easy way to delete their search history if desired.

Highlight Promotions and Picks Within Search Results

Integrating promotional content such as special offers, discounts, suggested products, best sellers,etc. into the search box experience boosts visibility as well as shopper intent. You also encourage customers to explore promotional items and discover new products.

Enable Voice Search

To accommodate the rise of voice-powered shopping, enable voice search capabilities on your eCommerce site. This allows customers to simply state out loud what they are looking for to your site’s virtual assistant/app/chatbox. The voice input is then transcribed to text and handled like a regular search.

Implementing voice search optimization makes product discovery even more convenient, accessible and satisfying for all. It’s also a forward-thinking enhancement as voice-powered interactions are becoming more popular each day.

Optimize Loading Speed for Instant Search Results

To create a seamless search experience, optimize the speed and performance of your eCommerce search function. Slow loading times can lead to frustration and abandonment. By engineering a high-speed search, your customers can explore products freely and stay engaged on your site. Prioritize search speed optimization for satisfying, uninterrupted discovery.

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Wrap Up

Optimizing your eCommerce search should be an ongoing priority that transforms your basic search box into an intelligent discovery engine. Furthermore, if you treat it as another core customer experience it can boost both customer sales and loyalty.

With a strategic search optimization strategy, product discovery on your site becomes easy, efficient and engaging.