eCommerce Website Best Practices in Search Box Placement

Dennis Walters
3 min readSep 22, 2015

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Site search is one of the most important feature but many times it’s neglected to optimize by website owners. It is essential to have the right site search function at the right place so that visitors can use it effectively. As per the earlier survey, between 11% and 15% of visitors starts shopping after searching in the website.

Also, People do not have much patience when they are searching for something on the website. So, if they couldn’t find what they are looking for, they will say bye-bye to your website. With the use of effective search functionality, you can improve site conversion rates. Let’s check out how you can improve your site search functionality.

What are the best places for site search on the ecommerce store?

Offer Advance Filter Option Instead: You will be surprised to know that some major players in business do not actually offer search option. In place of that, perhaps they choose to give advance filtering options which will make the search easy though not as easy as providing them with the site search box. So, when you are in the process of developing website, mention your eCommerce web design service provider this aspect clearly.

Place the Search Box at a Vantage Point: Search option should be available throughout the website, whichever web page the visitor is navigating through. So, the best place to positioning of the search box should be prominent and striking so that the visitors can make use of it easily. Most of the websites make use of the right side top corner or left side top corner of the web page.

Find Best Position by Testing: Before you actually finalize on its permanent position, it is suggested that you A/B test. Based on the kind of responses each one of the position has generated, you could perhaps give it a final spot.

Place It Away From Other Boxes: The positioning should be in such a place where other boxes such as newsletter sign-up, post code search are not kept. Keep placing different from the other boxes and options that are available on the page so that visitor may not get confused.

What are the Best Practices for Site Search on the eCommerce Website?

Label It Right: When you have given it the most prominent position, you should also label it accordingly to catch the attention of the visitor. You need to make use of the right word here too. The word ‘search’ will generate more responses than the word ‘go’.

Text in The Search Box: Having text in the search box will help the website owner explain to his visitors as to what they can find. However, this text has to disappear when the users click inside the search box.

What Size of the Site Search Box is Ideal? : This again can be arrived at after testing. A lot depends on the kind of products that the ecommerce website sells and also the search behavior of the customers. If the search terms are more, then the box has to be big enough to accommodate them. It will give them a facility to make corrections in case there are any misspellings.

Use Auto-Complete: Auto-complete search function is useful for owners and visitors. This Speed up the search process. This is an option that helps people to commit fewer mistakes. Suggestions are offered to the users when just a few characters have been entered into the box.

All these features should be discussed when you are getting your eCommerce website designed from the experts in the field.

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Originally published at mconnectmedia.wordpress.com on September 21, 2015.

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