Is Shopify store’s search feature even useful? Because here’s a cause of conversion death I see a boatload of Shopify stores suffering from and they don’t even realize it…
They hide one of the store’s most powerful conversion levers behind an often camouflaged icon.
Orglamix.com’s theme does its best to hide their site search.
Now let me explain, according to research from WebLinc, visitors who use your site search are 216% more likely to convert than regular visitors.
On top of that, Screen Pages shared the results for 21 of their clients who all but one had a higher revenue-per-visitor from visitors navigating via the site search compared to visitors that didn’t.
Percentage of people using site search and the percentage of revenues influenced by search.
This means you need to do everything you can to get your visitors to notice and use your site search. So if, for example:
- They arrived via the home page or a collection page and want to quickly find what the product that they had in mind (usually from organic, direct or referral traffic).
- They want to navigate beyond the product page your paid ads brought them to because they want something else.
Hiding your site search behind a tiny icon leads to frustration and poor user experience.
Enabling the “Spearfishers”
Forrester Research published an did an in-depth report on the importance of site search. They coined users who come to a site searching for a specific product as “spearfishers.”
The report found that 43% of visitors to a site go immediately to the search box, and searchers are 2-3 times more likely to buy.
Because of this fact, as a Shopify store owner, you need to “enable the spearfishers” and make sure your site search is not only found immediately but also that you have a compelling prompt to sell the benefit of doing a search.
It’s not just about making your site search unmissable, it’s getting users to perform a search too.
Simply stating “Search Our Store” as a prompt is not enough. Giving your visitors a sense of what they’ll get on the other side of their search like outdoors store REI.com does will drive far more searches.
Using Analytics to uncover conversion opportunities
Your Shopify store’s site search feature is useful in another way as well.
Not only does it help your visitors swiftly find what they are looking for, but it also provides you with a stack of information about how to improve your sales.
Look in your Google Analytics search logs and see:
- Whether visitors are searching for products that you don’t carry? If so, consider adding them to your store.
- What type of language do your visitors use in their searches? Consider mirroring your language to theirs. This is particularly relevant if you’re in the habit of using industry-speak that your visitors don’t use.
- If they entering search terms you haven’t thought of for your AdWords or SEO targeting?
- If the searches are being triggered on a particular page that could be improved to remove the need for a search (as many users won’t bother and will be gone in a flash).
Don’t rely on the out-the-box search solution for your Shopify store’s search
Of course, the quality of the results your site search delivers is everything.
If your visitors hit a dead-end or get junk results, they’ll bail.
Searchanise is a great solution that’s free up to 25 products and only $9 per month up to 500. Instant Search and Smart Filters is another good one.
The Shoptimized™ Theme includes a predictive search tool as one of 30+ built in conversion boosting tools. As one of the best Shopify themes it will help you give your sales a huge uplift.
