How a site search tool can improve your conversion rates
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why a ‘no results’ page is bad for your website conversion rates. If your customers can’t find the product, service, or information they want quickly and easily, they’ll go elsewhere. No search results, no sales.
So, if you want to turn more browsers into customers, you need to make sure their journey through your website doesn’t send them down any dead ends. This is where a good semantic site search tool can help.
Semantic search: a crucial conversion ingredient
Semantic search is smarter than a standard search function. It doesn’t just look at what you’re searching for. It also recognizes why you’re searching for it.
You don’t have to type in a specific set of keywords for results to show up. Instead, you can ask it a general query in conversational terms. Enter ‘brown jacket under $200’, and it will use natural language processing to understand your intent. It gets that you don’t want to find a page with that search term on it – you want a brown jacket that costs less than $200.
Then it uses context, like your location and history, to make the results personal to you. Got a favorite brand that you search for a lot? You'll see products from that brand at the top of the results page. Want to pick a product up in store? The tool will show you which local branches have it in stock.
In practice, this makes it much faster and simpler for customers to find what they're after. And if their journey from landing on your website to checking out is friction-free, guess what? They’re more likely to stick around or return later to search for something else. The easier it is to find something to buy, the more transactions they'll make.
Site search tool features that help convert
A semantic site search tool comes with all kinds of conversion-boosting features, including:
- Autocomplete – Like a couple finishing each other’s sentences, semantic search predicts what you're looking for before you’ve finished typing it. This means spending less time searching and more time purchasing.
- Spelling correction – A sale shouldn’t be thwarted by a typo. Semantic search picks up on errors and suggests a correct alternative, keeping visitors moving along the buyer’s journey.
- Smart filters – When visitors reach the results page, semantic search presents them with custom filters to help them find products faster. So, if they were to search for shoes, it can show filters for gender, size, color, brand, and so on.
- Customer data – You can learn a lot about your customers from what they type into a semantic site search tool. What brand do they search the most? Which products do they struggle to find? Which ones do they purchase together? The answers will give you valuable data you can use to optimize your website for better conversion rates.
Try semantic search for yourself
Now you know what a semantic site search tool is capable of, why not give one a try? Sign up for a free trial today and get hands-on with the powerful site search plugin developed by the Site Search 360 team.
Want to learn more about the benefits of adding semantic search to your site? Check out our ultimate guide to semantic search.