eCommerce Websites – 10 rules to better internal search results 原文連結

When you’re running an eCommerce website you spend so much time optimising your site, improving your product descriptions and fussing over your web design that you sometimes don’t notice the little things.

After all, you’re the one who’s trying to sell something. You might be looking around at your stock wondering how to sell it all.  But that’s often the problem.

How will a real live person (potential customer) find your site, and how will they interact with it? Well, there’s a large chance that they will use your website’s inbuilt search feature to find what they are looking for.

According to Web Side Story, “More than 80% of all Internet-based purchases involve a search for products within a web site, making an effective site search solution a key success factor in online retailing.”

In another eyetracking study, the usability guru Jakob Nielsen described 57% of the users of one website as search-dominant, meaning that they were by nature drawn to and highly likely to use the search tool of the website.

Another factor that will add to the importance of your search tool is the way that search engines like Google index your content. Google has a preference for linking to your home page and higher level pages in your site, so it is likely that many of your search engine visitors will not land on the page that’s most relevant to their search. To find what they’re looking for they are likely to use your inbuilt search tool.

So here are some simple rules to a good eCommerce Website search:

1. Have a simple search box high and prominent on every page
2. Have an advanced search that allows customers to narrow down the options the way they would want to
3. Make sure your site’s search engine returns good specific results
4. Display the number of search results found and offer links to each page of the search results at the top and bottom of the results (eg: Your search returned 43 results. Pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 Next >>)
5. Offer the option to display more or fewer results per page
6. Display the search term used in a search box at the top of the results and make it easy for the visitor to re-search. Link to your advanced search page near the search box with text like “narrow your search” or “refine your search.”
7. Show pictures in the search results
8. Allow users to “add to cart” from the search results
9. Offer the option to sort search results by things like price, ratings, relevance etc
10. Test your search results.

Now go and try yours out!