As they click into the search box… a good practice is to show their previous search history, and possibly popular searches.   As they start typing… You can show suggested searches, categories, and/or products.   Mispellings The auto-suggestions and results should account for common misspellings. For example, if they type ‘dreses’ it should suggest results […]

For stores with 50+ products Having either a category filter (when searching) or search filters in the results page is especially important for stores with over 50 products or so.

If the user searches for a product your store doesn’t have, showing an empty page leads them nowhere and can cause frustration. And frustration can make them bounce away from your store. Include some of the following components alternate queries similar to the query searched for category suggestions based on the query personalized product recommendations […]

As the user clicks in the search box (so before they start typing something), the idea here is to give them some suggestions and get back to a previous search they submitted.  Showing popular searches isn’t a feature as frequently found on online stores, but it is definitely something to test.

Unless users are looking specifically for a page such as your returns policy or one of your categories, then they’re looking for a product. Product searches constitute most of the searches, whether they look for a product keyword or a symptom, and thus products should be shown first in the search results. Again, that’s unless […]

Show the correct thumbnail 12% of users search using a color keyword. The thumbnails of products in search results should show the variation that matches the color they want.

For example, if you search for “red shirt”, the color filter should be set to “red”.   

You have four options 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 dropdown in the results page to change the scope of the search Option 4: Add […]

When searching… When users are searching for Returns, Shipping, Order Tracking, and such, they should be redirected to hat page.   Adidas When you type in for example ‘returns’, it automatically redirects to the Returns page.  The problem though is that it first shows the search results page with no results and after a couple […]

Clear context Users need to know at all times where they are on the site. Mentioning the keyword they just searched for makes it clear to them what they’re looking at.