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The On-Site Search Feature on Your Website

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The best feature that you can possibly add to your website is easy navigation.

  • No one would want to go through a website that has one too many complications. You have to consider the level of expertise of majority of your users in terms of computer literacy and most of them only know the basics.
  • It would be such a pain if your customers would always rely on google to redirect them to the links that relate to your site. Which is why a navigation bar with a descriptive page names is the first step toward keeping visitors engaged, but if you have a lot of details on your site, it’s vital to include an on-site search feature as well.

THE PROS OF CONSTRAINED SEARCH

  • In today’s time, you can literally search everything in Google. You can type in just a few words or type in a whole sentence, press enter and that is about it. You can have your desired results. Sometimes though, it can be very overwhelming to see the sea of results posted on the internet.
  • This is why constraining your search can also be very helpful. You can do this by limiting the search box according to different classifications desired by your users. This will make it easier for your clients because it will give them more relevant results that are related to their desired topic.

OPEN-ENDED SEARCHES

  • While constrained search is very useful, most websites use open-ended search strategy. It could also be too limiting if you only allow one or two searches which is why open-ended search method is still widely used. But if you plan to use this type of search, you need to make sure that the accuracy of the search will lead your customers to the most relevant results that they could find because it would be very frustrating to only look up for a particular word and then you are swarmed by a million other articles that are not even related to the topic.
  • Your on-site search must be set up to look for the exact phrase first. Although the articles that aren’t related could still show up, they should be filtered to land underneath the most relevant results. The same process is important for eCommerce sites.

CONSIDER DIRECT SEARCHING TO SPECIFIC PAGES

  • You can either use constrained or open-ended search, whichever is more suited for you website or you can also skip the search page if you like. Why? Because you can easily link all of the direct pages to your article and in just the click of the mouse, it will automatically direct you clients to the necessary points of your business.

THE BOTTOM LINE

  • Whatever you decide on, the important thing is that there should be an on-site search feature on your website. If you search something and there are many unrelated search results, adjust until you get your search feature to work properly. Provide more specific results because that’s what people want when they are search a website.

 

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