Today customers expect site search engines not only to pull out results, but to be smart and forgiving and lead them to the results that match their intent. Customers also appreciate great offers, especially if they are direct, trustworthy, and easy to purchase.

We have gathered tips for creating a smarter search - responding to your customers needs and driven by user’s intent.

1. Turn mistakes into success

Assist visitors on your site and maximize the opportunity by merchandising similar or related products instead of saying "no results found". Don’t let the customer guess the keyword that matches your product data base.

Apptus Search always shows visitors the right product, even when typographical errors or changed word order causes entries to differ from the shop´s databases. Apptus Theca® platform also include a multidirectional thesaurus understanding that “sofa” and “couch” mean the same type of product even if the words are completely different.

2. Provide multiple ways to find

The message “Your search produced 4000 hits” is as annoying as “no results found”. A good search must be able to narrow down results in a fashionable way.

Apptus Search dynamically provides site navigation by creating product groups, or “facets,” to show similar products together. This gives your customer more options for navigating and retailers a powerful way to merchandise online. We utilize previous visitors’ click behavior to list products under each facet in order of popularity, increasing the likelihood that people will find what they’re looking for. We also integrate business logic when listing products, turning search results into a powerful sales steering tool.

3. Adjust to your customers’ behaviors

The major reason for going to a shopping site is to research products or prepare a shopping decision. Count on that your customers will spend more time on other similar sites than on your site to compare items. So when a customer makes a precise search request the result has to be just as accurate. A “white two shelf bookcase” needs to produce only those items matching the specific criteria. You want to be able to give your visitor a straight answer. Even after a precise search the supporting facets will be appreciated and lead the visitor to related or similar items that they may not have thought about.

A big part of your visitors will be in a browsing mood giving you vague inquiries like “audio books”. In this case your search has to be able to lead the visitors to relevant groups of interest e.g., bestseller, award winners, price worthy, age or style etc.
Depending on the search, the entire Apptus Search adapts and produces groupings relevant to the specific topic. With the intelligent technology from Apptus you can auto-generate keywords for each product category, increasing the likelihood that natural language queries will produce results on your site.

4. Catch the high-use search queries

You want to define custom landing pages for specific high use search queries e.g. user searches for "Playstation" is provided a landing page combining all options related to the search.

Because Apptus platform provides leading technology for creating and manage complex relations between different types of data sources we can save search terms used by the user and create relations between the data. This data is then used to improve the future results. E.g. a search for “gta” will produce results on the game “Grand Theft Auto”, or re-direct the visitor to the Playstation landing page where all games can be linked in. You can also use this technology to re-direct visitors to sections of the site that you would like to promote. If someone searches for “Christmas” you can re-direct them to the season campaign your sales division prepared. This also creates a side effect where Apptus platform helps retailer know which products to merchandise since the tagging and track records indicates what is “hot” on the market.

5. Employ a digital sales agent

Research from Forrester shows that 24% of customers have both a product that has been recommended and they attend to spend 19% more. This means that Up-sell and Cross-sell based on statistics can increase your sales with 20%.

With Apptus Prediction Engine you will be able to merchandise offers without having your staff spending lots of manual work. The predictions are based on the collective wisdom of your users allowing your system to pin point offers to specific target groups. You will also be able to control the placement of banners on search results pages to highlight specific promotional activities (e.g. free shipping on all orders over € 50).

6. Include external content on your site

A lot of the action is happing on price comparison sites. People are reviewing and rating you products but on someone else’s site. Apptus provides a service that let you crawl relevant web information and make your site honest and appealing for the majority of users.

7. Maximize the use of hardware

Look for high performance systems that take a substantial load off your web and database servers. Lightening the load on your current infrastructure means higher availability as well as a more reliable solution, and without increasing operating costs. By the end of the day, it’s the availability and reliability of your e-commerce solution that assures increased sales.

Performance at your e-commerce website is of the utmost importance if you don’t want your visitors to develop “search rage” and move on to www.somebodyelse.com. Surveys have shown that a visitor who leaves a website due to search rage will not return to your website for four months. So if you don’t want to be blacklisted by potential customers, be very aware of the performance of your e-commerce website.

Full scalability is one of many important factors with a solution from Apptus. Most e-commerce business owners are interested in modest initial investments but with the capability to upgrade.

8. Measure, measure, and measure

Comprehensive reporting from our web based reporting system provides detailed information to help improve your site, including; what visitors are looking for, what they are finding and not finding, and key metrics on search result quality. Apptus Statistics also offers category-based reporting, providing insights into the search behavior within areas of your site. Site statistics are automatically feed back to Apptus Search for instant updates to how search results are ranked and product recommendations.

9. Configure, test and optimize.

Use the site analysis to optimize your search results immediately. Small, continuous improvements will evolve your site, don’t let it become lifeless with a rigid feeling.

Varieties of options are available and with Apptus search logic you can easily refine and reorder the way to present results. Apptus technology is build with a declarative programming and we take on an iterative approach, making it risk-free to explore adjustments and update to live systems only when you are totally satisfied with all possible interactions.
The secure, scalable, and configurable Apptus Theca platform provide fast and accurate product discovery, dynamic product navigation, and real-time merchandising capabilities – the most important drivers in raising e-commerce conversion rates and increasing average order values.

10. Be an attractive site

In the long run, professional designed shops sell more. Search & navigation are critical factors for success. Apptus solutions will help you look stunning and improve the appearance of the shop remarkably.