site search Archives

4 Reasons E-tailers Need Site Search Technology

May 7, 2018

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According to eMarketer, 67% of Millennials and 50% of Generation X US internet users shop in bed. While it is old news that shopping has gone beyond brick and mortar stores and into our homes via digital devices, online retailers who optimize for mobile devices and user experience are thriving in the crowded world of e-commerce. For e-tailers looking to make their sites both mobile optimized and user-friendly, there is a simple solution – site search technology.

Technology that improves a website’s search function is an effective way for online retailers to quickly give prospective customers what they want. Many fast-growing e-tailers have one thing in common – they allow online shoppers to find exactly what they are looking for through advanced search. They do this because they understand that fast product discovery is pivotal to driving online sales. Baymard Institute reports that a poor search interface typically leads to more abandonments and users are unlikely to return to the site. Audiences searching your online store have intent to buy, so why not make it easier for them?

Here are four reasons your online store needs site search technology:

1. Enhanced UX Design

Online shoppers do not want to spend more than a minute hunting down a search bar, which is why e-tailers can add value to their website with a prominent search bar and a well-designed search tool. An effective search product will recommend products through a drop-down menu to help visitors save time. In addition, intuitive search tools that offer autocomplete, spell check, and synonym matching can guide customers to the right item when the product name is on the tip of their tongue. Site search technology is a simple way to improve the function and UX design of any online store, and ultimately a user’s shopping experience.

2. Analytics Can Drive Business Growth

No matter the scale of your online store, you can still engage visitors who discover your site and turn them into loyal customers. Maybe you are thinking that you are a small e-tailer and there is no immediate reason to give your visitors intelligent search with your limited supply of products. If that is the case, then do not underestimate how site search technology can be beneficial to both the customer and business owner. Many site search products, like SearchIQ, offer analytics as a primary feature to help online stores grow their business with data. You can think of site search analytics as your business intelligence team, giving actionable insight to fuel business growth!

Analytics enables e-tailers to view the products or keywords their users search for, allowing them to discover the types of products consumers express interest in. E-tailers can use this valuable information to source products their customers want. For example, if you own an online home store and you use site search technology to learn that a large number of your visitors are searching for candles, then it would benefit your business to add candles to your store catalog. You can increase your conversion rate by appealing to your candle-loving customers.

3. Strategically Showcase New or Relevant Products

The ultimate goal for any store, online or not, is to get products off the shelf. Site search technology offers the ability to arrange product information in a search results drop-down menu via custom results ranking. This feature gives you the power to recommend specific items to your visitors who have the most intent on converting. You can give special attention to new items or products that have not had much love from customers and move them to the top of your search results list.

Site search technology allows you to be strategic in how you showcase products to your customers. Maybe you have an online store, and you are trying to sell the rest of your holiday-themed inventory. When a visitor searches for table linens, you can customize results to bring holiday tableware to the top of the search results list.

4. Users Spend More Time on Site

In addition to helping visitors save time when looking for products, site search technology also increases the length of time visitors spend on site. Econsultancy states, “A better user experience means that customers are more likely to spend more time on the site, and can boost the number of registrations and return visits.” Potential customers are more engaged to browse available inventory with efficient site search, leading to an increase in online sales.

The Transition from GSS to SearchIQ – What You Should Know? And What to Look Forward to?

July 5, 2017

It’s official; Google is discontinuing Google Site Search. It seems everywhere we look we can’t help but see GSS (Google Site Search) or CSE (Custom Search Engine) being written about in different posts and articles. It can all be quite confusing if you use either of these products. So we decided to shed some light on what this means, what you should be looking for in an alternative and how to get new search up and running properly.

Let’s start off by explaining the difference between the two. GSS is a paid product to implement Google’s search technology on your website, while CSE or Custom Search Engine is a free, ad-supported site search engine.

According to the statement given by Google spokesperson to ‘Search Engine Land’, “We are winding down the Google Site Search product over the next year, but will provide customer and technical support through the duration of license agreements. For GSS users whose contract expires between April 1st and June 30th, 2017, we are providing a free 3-month extension with additional query volume to allow more time for them to implement the necessary changes to their site. GSS customers may also take advantage of our Custom Search Engine solution, an ads-supported model that offers similar functionality.”

And although everything seems great because Google is directing existing customers to use their free custom search engine as a replacement, unfortunately using CSE will force the websites to show ads along with their search results.

Is Google custom search a good alternative to GSS?

How does Google custom search impact your website’s search experience? How does it affect the overall user experience? As you know, Google CSE is an ad-based site search engine which means that your website will be exposed to ads that you may not want. A user performing a search on your site is looking for something specific and displaying ads along with search results could disappoint or confuse the user, driving them to leave your site.

To go even further, worst case scenario could be your website displaying ads from competitors, leaving you at the mercy of their paid advertising. When and if the user clicks on an ad, they will be redirected to your competitor’s website and you will lose a potential customer. Apart from the ads, CSE has a daily capping limit for search queries. This means that if your website has high search volume, it will stop working once you’ve reached the limit. Another point to consider with Google custom search is that there isn’t any email or phone support. If you have a question or query, you pretty much have to figure it out on your own.

Good site search is designed to help visitors find the desired content or products they’re looking for, and not to distract users making the search complicated. The relevant search results (advertisement free) enhance user engagement on your website and drive more conversions. An effective site search has a business goal to generate more revenue, more traffic, or longer visit times. So compromising the user experience by displaying ads could completely alter your business strategy.

Considering the details mentioned above, migrating to CSE may not be an ideal solution for your website.

Why SearchIQ should be your next search solution?

SearchIQ is a unique and modern search engine technology that offers enhanced search capabilities and gives your visitors the best user experience. It is the most advanced and robust alternative for Google site search. We at SearchIQ understand that your users rely on search and we get that search is crucial to drive business and increase viewership, that’s why we designed our powerful algorithm to return fast and accurate search results quickly. We also help you manage content more effectively with real-time analytics. Via our dashboard of analytics you can see what is most searched (that you may or may not provide results for) allowing you to create content based on what people want.

We also cater to whichever development platform you are using, choose between our WordPress and JavaScript versions. Moreover, SearchIQ offers both free and paid functionality based on your business requirements. And when it comes to ease of use and installation, with SearchIQ you don’t have to worry about hardware setup or maintenance. We take care of all technical stuff for you. All you need to have is a search domain and index data. And if you choose to customize the search parameters and appearance, you can do so!

As a site admin, you must be curious how SearchIQ is different from other SaaS search solutions? Let’s look at the features to understand the difference and benefits to using SearchIQ.

Simplicity

You can easily configure and manage your domain through the SearchIQ dashboard, just a few clicks and your search engine is ready. Easily create an account to add your domain and index your website. In our resources section we provide step-by-step instructions on how to implement any feature or assistance with customization.

Customizable

SearchIQ features various customization options to match your website’s theme and look. Apart from the general options, you can further change the feel of your website using our ‘Custom CSS’ option.

Scalable

SearchIQ’s architecture is robust and completely scalable, so you don’t have to worry if any of your domains experience more traffic than usual. As your data or query volume observes a spike or surge, SearchIQ will scale your domain’s resources up or down as needed.

Pricing

SearchIQ is much more cost-effective compared to other SaaS solutions. If your website meets the criteria for number of posts, pages or products SearchIQ is totally free. If the number goes beyond what’s allowed on the free version (10k documents and 50k searches per month) you will need to upgrade to the plus version. Moreover, SearchIQ Plus is also at competitive pricing and provides unlimited indexing and searches.

Other Search Features:

Phrase matching
Autocomplete suggestions with toggle image option
Synonym aliasing capability
Weights assignment on title, content, category, tag and author
Real-time indexing
Real-time analytics
Cross-site functionality to link your sites together
Search results sorting by relevance, newest and oldest
Deep search functionality to search custom fields and custom post types (great for ecommerce sites or recipe sites)

Want to learn more about SearchIQ and its functionality? Check out our demo site here.

Improve Functionality of your Favorite WordPress Plugins with SearchIQ II

February 27, 2017

Custom Field Suite

Custom Field Suite (CFS) is a custom field management plugin. It allows you to easily add groups of custom fields to your posts and pages with several different field types to choose from including: text, date, wysiwyg, user, relationship, hyperlink and more. The plugin is simple, easy to use and supports unique features such as the ability to add front-end editing form for the title, content and custom fields anywhere on your site.
If you choose to install CFS plugin, your website will need a great search plugin like SearchIQ. SearchIQ’s capability to index several custom field types will allow website users to access more content. With SearchIQ, you can also select to display custom field value in the results page description.

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache plugin caches your search results pages, database objects, CSS, JavaScript, feeds, and more automatically. It optimizes your website’s speed and performance by reducing the page load time via integrating content delivery network (CDN). The plugin enhances server performance and improves your user experience.
Other benefits include improving your search engine ranking, compressing files to save bandwidth, sustaining high traffic and optimizing progressive page rendering. These factors affect your site’s rank and improve your conversion rate.
How does SearchIQ compliment W3 Total Cache you ask? SearchIQ displays fast and accurate results, improving the user experience further. It keeps visitors on your website happy and increases browsing time. Caching your website and using onsite search is a proven performance booster.

WPtouch Mobile

WPtouch is a WordPress plugin that makes your website mobile-friendly. The plugin adds a clean and elegant mobile friendly theme to your WordPress site automatically. Apart from the theme, the plugin also allows you to customize the appearance and styling of your website, without needing to change any code. It’s one of the simplest ways to deliver a fast and user-friendly site to your mobile visitors.
Making your website’s UI compatible on mobile devices is crucial but your website still needs more. For better UX, mobile centric search is equally important and with SearchIQ you can give your users just that! SearchIQ has the most advanced options to customize the look you want for your users including search bar placeholder text, color and more. You can also add a search icon if you don’t want a search bar on your website. Website visitors will now have the most pleasing experience no matter what device they are using.

Improve Functionality of your Favorite WordPress Plugins with SearchIQ

December 13, 2016

We’re proud of our search plugin! Not only are the features incredibly useful for publishers and site builders, but it also integrates nicely with other popular WordPress plugins. In most cases it makes sense to use SearchIQ with these plugins, as they compliment one another. To explain what we mean we’ve decided to share some plugins we think work great with SearchIQ.

bbPress

bbPress is a WordPress plugin that converts your blogging platform into a fully featured forum application. Forums are popular as they allow like-minded people to engage in a focused discussion. Most forum software is slow and hard to manage, where as bbPress focuses on speed, ease of use and integration. A new bbPress forum can easily be set up and once sub-forums and categories are added, users can start posting topics.

Forum applications by nature are search oriented, so implementing a search plugin along with bbPress is an added advantage. Using SearchIQ with bbPress enhances your user experience. For example, a forum will have various sub-forums, categories and each category will have several topics making it essential for a website admin to integrate search that will display desired content. SearchIQ will help the user to search on topics of interest and will help them get to that content quickly, allowing them to participate in the discussion rather than having to browse across hundreds of threads.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the most popular ecommerce plugin for WordPress sites. It is a powerful and extendable ecommerce solution with endless flexibility and access to hundreds of extensions providing complete control to the admin. WooCommerce offers various features for an online marketplace, from product to shipping. Premium extensions can also be used to offer bookings, memberships and subscriptions. You can list a product with various variations (size, color etc.), style your store, offer promo and coupons, and integrate payment gateway with shipping.

There are many benefits to using SearchIQ with WooCommerce. Apart from title, body content, tags and categories, SearchIQ has been designed to index product attributes, custom fields, system fields, post excerpts and taxonomies as well. Even if you have hundreds of products, SearchIQ will display the desired items immediately based on the keyword(s) searched. The autocomplete feature allows users to view the most relevant products in accordance to the search term(s). This is important because you want to convert someone from a visitor to a customer as soon as possible. Get site visitors to what they are looking for fast and don’t leave them searching for long periods of time and risk losing them to another website.

Events Manager

Events Manager is a powerful and full-featured event registration plugin for WordPress. It supports almost all the features of event registration management including recurring events, calendar, location, Google map integration, booking management and more.

The event registration process is simple and the option to create single day/recurring event registration is available. Features like approvals, rejections, export CVS, template tags and short codes are available to be used in your posts and pages. It also allows you to assign and view events by location, support event categories, event custom attributes, Google maps and various widgets for events.

The advanced functionality of SearchIQ further enhances the capabilities of Events Manager. As the events/locations are custom post types, SearchIQ makes it easier for users to search the desired event by title or location. Apart from these fields, events can also be searched with tags, categories, and custom attributes.

WP Frontpage News

WP Frontpage News is a plugin to display latest posts from a category, page or tags. This awesome news plugin gives you the ability to display content in a dynamic way and it’s easy to navigate. This plugin was built to automatically format your content in a specified way and display more information in a limited space, which will help to catch the eye of more users and prevent a break in the layout.

A news website can’t ignore the fact that it needs efficient search functionality. SearchIQ offers advanced features to give users a unique way to search news content. Synonym aliasing and relevance refinement are just a few of SearchIQ’s features that would help to make WP Frontpage News content more searchable. And we can’t forget to mention real time indexing! Newsworthy stories come about at the drop of a hat, so with our real-time indexing all new posts are catalogued immediately, allowing visitors to search new articles right away.

4 Advanced Ways to Reduce the Bounce Rate of a Website

October 24, 2016

Does your high traffic website lack conversion? Are you struggling to keep your website visitors from straying to other sites? Do you worry your website visitors are leaving without even browsing the content, resulting in high bounce rate?

Bounce rate is one of the most powerful metrics used to measure the quality of your website content or landing page. It indicates whether or not visitors are hanging around or bouncing back from the landing page. If visitors bounce, it shows either the web page content is not relevant or the page is not user friendly.

A high bounce rate can be alarming and may suggest that visitors are not engaging with content, or your call-to-action is not easily found or converting into leads. It’s a clear signal that your site content and user experience need some help.

Here are 4 recommendations to help reduce the bounce rate of your website:

UI / UX

The first deciding factor for a visitor to stay or leave is the design. Good UI engages visitors and evokes a curiosity to continue exploring a site. Great UI combined with great UX is a huge plus. You want visitors to find what they are looking for easily and you want the site navigation to be as simple as possible. Don’t frustrate users and complicate their journey. Remember to always keep the user in mind when thinking about your site’s UI and UX, we even recommend getting some friends or colleagues to test out a website and provide feedback before going live. It’s always helpful to have a second set of eyes to test out your site.

Site Search

Another way to keep your visitors browsing longer is search functionality. Your website needs to have a search bar to help users get to what they are looking for. You don’t want to lose customers because you don’t offer search. Make sure to keep your search results accurate and relevant to help users find desired content easily and quickly.

Landing Page

The landing page holds an important role in deciding whether your visitors will stay or leave. Keep your content relevant and have a compelling call-to-action. Your landing page shouldn’t mislead the visitors to read irrelevant content.

Avoid Popups

Popups can be obtrusive and annoying, as they disrupt the reader and could potentially cause someone to leave. They can also be very distracting and may increase your bounce rate. Avoiding irrelevant and excessive use of popups builds the reputation of your site and encourages visitors to stay longer.

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