Search is an indispensable part of the ecommerce shopping experience yet it can be a leading cause of frustration if implemented improperly. The biggest cause for concern with searches on most sites is the fact that they’re too broad. You search for a red jacket and get 200+ results.

This disappointment is a direct result of unfulfilled expectations. A lot of this expectation is built up by Google which has the uncanny ability of always finding whatever you’re looking for. As a regular store owner you probably don’t have access to Google’s resources, its wide pool of talent, or its famed proprietary algorithm. That doesn’t mean optimizing your search is a lost cause.

Category search is a neat little tweak you can use to narrow the scope of your search results without needing to hire an entire team of computer engineers.

There are a couple of ways you can implement category search:

Option 1: Give an auto-complete option to search in the current category
Option 2: Auto-update the search field to the current category (Search Scope)
Option 3: Search in the current category by default, but add a drop down in the results page to change the scope of the search
Option 4: Add a “Search Within” dropdown next to the search box. Implementing this is especially important for mobile users.