Does your e-commerce store show “no results” search page when searching your site with certain keywords? According to Sli Search around 10% of searches return “no result” page result. If you want to know how your site search deals with it then I have two simple test solutions. I use them when I carry out free website inspection services on our client websites. I simply put my full name in their search field and watch what result I get. Then I use one of their products or categories in their search field, but I deliberately misspell it. This simple test gives me some ideas about their current search and what could be improved.

Some ideas about how you can improve your site search:

• incorporate “auto complete” feature in your search box. Good example of site search with auto complete is at vistek.ca
  
• show results with some of the words

• show spelling suggestions

• show popular searches or products
• or show advanced search with a search cloud

If you want to improve you site search then companies like SLI Systems, nextopia, atg, celebros or omniture offer intelligent search technology for websites. These intelligent site search solutions can do more than just deal with “no result” page. And as 60% of  responders found optimized site search to be an effective way of boosting a sale, this is one area where it pays to focus your attention on. More on this topic can be found here…

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