If you are running an online business, you must be aware of constantly emerging and changing trends. However, what remains constant is keeping up-to-date with the trends to ensure a seamless user experience for your customers. One key element is to focus on your site search features. This is why we have found six key eCommerce site search features that you must incorporate in your online business to stay relevant in 2021.Â
Despite successful products or service offerings, it is essential to manage these elements on your eCommerce site to streamline the search process efficiently. These recommended site search features are not only a must-have in the current context but will help increase your customer experience and eventually conversions.
1- Voice SearchÂ
The amount of people who own smart speakers has grown rapidly in recent years. Similarly, the reliance on voice assistants for day-to-day tasks has also become a normal part of consumers’ lives. According to a study, approximately 75% of US houses will have a smart speaker by 2025. This trend is the perfect opportunity for eCommerce businesses to incorporate voice search in their sites for better customer usability.
Incorporating the voice search feature in your operations will be a game-changer for your customer’s shopping experience. The crucial factor is in the natural language processing and its accuracy. In essence, the site voice search must differentiate between various queries and inputs to accurately retrieve the right options. This includes understanding singular or plural queries, item and attribute queries, and nuances of languages.Â
In the coming years, voice search is going to be an expectation rather than a surprise element for your site – add this in 2021 and make your customers delighted with the exceptional user experience and be their go-to site!
2- Artificial Intelligence (AI)Â
Data-driven insights are the future of the eCommerce business. With the help of AI, you can give your customers personalized and intuitive shopping experiences. The automatic data retrieval helps determine customer shopping patterns and their inputs, enabling you to calibrate your strategies. The editor-in-chief of The Digital Outdoor elucidated that consumers like to know if brands care about them and if AI is programmed for this purpose, it can enhance the shopping experience.Â
Programming the AI to understand shoppers’ search behaviors can enable you to give tailored services to your users. With a vast number of searchable data such as titles, descriptions, attributes, and reviews – accurate data handling and processing with advanced technology can help your eCommerce search engine fetch relevant results only. Thus, adding Artificial Intelligence to your eCommerce site can boost your search performance significantly. More and more businesses will be utilizing AI in their eCommerce businesses, so much so that it will become the standard norm in the coming future.Â
3- Anticipating search queriesÂ
For ease and convenience in the search process for your users, implement autosuggestions for search queries. With this feature, you can guide your visitors to the most relevant results and increase your conversion rates by a significant margin. Autocomplete will deliver the queries to your visitors quicker and save time by directing them to the right pages and products. It will also provide them with a sense of familiarity as it would feel similar to the Google search engine, making them more accustomed to your eCommerce site search. Thus, incorporating this simple yet crucial feature for your site search can improve your website.Â
4- Mobile-optimized searchÂ
At least more than half of your website traffic originates from smartphones. As a result, having a mobile-friendly eCommerce site is the need of the hour. It can boost your conversion rates for your business.Â
While ensuring that your site has a mobile-responsive design, you need to pay attention to the location of your search box. The search box should be visible and accessible for visitors. Additionally, the size of the box has to be large enough for people to read their queries. The search boxes should be placed on each page as well for an uninterrupted user journey. These design details take into account the screen size, features, and usability making it easy for users to search for products and complete their checkout.Â
Tip: A 27 character box is ideal for your eCommerce site search feature.Â
5- Accommodate typos with spell checking
For continued improvements and innovation, ensure that you can also accommodate spelling errors and common typos with an accurate built-in spell checker. This solution enables your eCommerce platform to provide results rapidly and accurately.Â
You need to adopt this because it gives you the leverage to improvise on your search performance on your site and give your users a seamless search experience. Even if your customers type in wrong brand names or spellings, your site can still provide the relevant results with the help of this feature. As a business owner, it gives you greater control over your customer experience when you take such details into account. Hence, these features can future-proof your eCommerce site.Â
6- Quick search results
It does not matter how many products you have in stock or how stunning your site looks; if your search results are not rapid, then your customers are simply going to turn away. Users rarely wait for search results, and that is why you need to continually monitor the speed of search results and ensure that it is instantaneous. The goal is to make it easy for customers to search for products and then continue purchasing conveniently quickly.Â
Thus, these were the six top-performing eCommerce site search features to know and add to your online business in 2021. Stay ahead of your competitors and set yourself apart by implementing these features to your online business. By incorporating these key eCommerce site search features, you can accommodate your customer needs efficiently and stay on top of the competition despite the rapidly changing market conditions.Â
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