I like to keep up to date on the latest trends in site search and ecommerce, and thought it would be a good idea to share some of my resources with you. I’ve compiled a list of my favorite sites below that I check up on, on a regular basis. I’ve also put together links to specific articles about site search – why it’s important, how to improve performance, and how to measure its value – further below. While some of these are from a year or longer ago, the information is still relevant.

If you’ve come across any others that you found to be helpful and informative, please feel free to post a link in the Comments.

Websites

Internet Retailer:  http://www.internetretailer.com/

Shop.org: http://www.shop.org/

Practical Ecommerce: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/

GetElastic Ecommerce Blog: http://www.getelastic.com

Multichannel Merchant: http://multichannelmerchant.com/

Search Engine Land: http://searchengineland.com/

Search Engine Watch: http://searchenginewatch.com/

Specific Articles:

“Retailers must cater to the time-harried shopper”  http://www.internetretailer.com/2012/02/21/retailers-must-cater-time-harried-shopper (Feb. 2012)

“Demystifying the Myths of SEO”  http://multichannelmerchant.com/seo/seo-myths-1115tpp9/index.html (Nov. 2011)

“Are You Losing Money With Poor Internal Site Search?”  http://searchengineland.com/are-you-losing-money-with-poor-internal-site-search-67345 (May 2011)

“Search Marketing Is A Game Of Resources”  http://searchengineland.com/search-marketing-is-a-game-of-resources-64260 (Feb. 2011)

“15 Things to Ask Your Site Search Vendor” http://www.getelastic.com/site-search-vendor-checklist/ (May 2010)

Various site search articles: http://search.practicalecommerce.com/search/keywords-site_search

“How To Choose The Right Site Search Solution”  http://searchengineland.com/how-to-choose-the-right-site-search-solution-41375 (May 2010)

When you begin to design your site search experience, one of the first questions you face is how many columns of items do you want to display.  More columns means more product results will be seen above the fold but fewer columns makes for larger product images and room for more product information.  How do you decide?  What are your customers most likely to prefer?

For some retailers, the answer to these questions has been to let their customers decide.  Most retailers currently provide the option to view search results in a grid view or list view with the default generally being the grid view.  But now, some are expanding their grid view with choices for the number of columns.  In the example below from clothing retailer Boden, searchers are provided with four icons representing their view options.

The default is a five-column layout that includes product names, prices, and color swatches.

For those who want to see more items, Boden provides a six-column layout without any product information.  This works especially well for a clothing shoppers who want to browse lots of styles first.

For customers who want to browse even larger images, Boden provides a four-column layout with the product name, price, and color swatches.

The final option is a list view that includes a product description along with related searches.

From a usability perspective, I liked how Boden went with graphic icons to represent the different views instead of the typical “list view | grid view” text that most sites currently use.

This graphic icon approach can also be seen on the True Religion brand jeans store that uses icons represent either a three or four column layout.

If you like this idea but are not yet ready to abandon text labels, here is a hybrid approach from Kiddicare.com site that includes both text and graphic icons for search view controls.

One of the key takeaways I get from these examples is that site search can be an integral part of your strategies to provide a more personalized experience and one that is more empowering for customers. And being in control over every aspect of the shopping experience is exactly the sort of thing that today’s online shoppers crave.

If you have other ideas for how site search can put customers in charge, please post them in the comments below.

In stock or not? In the old days, shoppers had to add an item to their cart to answer this question. As e-commerce technology evolved, the stock status of a product became readily available on the product detail page and in many cases even migrated up to category pages. Now, retailers are discovering ways to utilize stock status in site search.

The simple question of if a product is in stock or not can be a handy bit of information to know when you serve up the results to a search query.  When someone asks to see what sort of handbags, drills or televisions you have, it makes good sense to show them your most popular items.  But, what if some of those items are sold out?  It’s going to be awfully hard to sell something you don’t have in stock.  With the knowledge of a product’s stock status, your search engine can be instructed to only display items in stock or give a higher rank to those that are in stock.  You can also give the shopper more control by making stock status a filter.

Knowing the stock status can also be used to inform shoppers on the search results page and spare them the disappointment of clicking through to a product detail page only to find that an item is out of stock.  A common way to reveal this information is by including the additional text of “In Stock” or “Out of Stock” somewhere in each product result.  In the example below, Folica places the stock status text next to their “Buy Now” button.  When an item is out of stock, they change the button to read “Out of Stock” and change the color to grey.  They even go a step further to indicate that an item has been discontinued.

Some retailers make it even easier to see what items are out of stock with bolder and more prominent messaging.  In this example from Wolferman’s they have gone with the phrase “SOLD OUT” and placed that directly over the product with an image overlay. One benefit to showing your out of stock items in this way is that can give buyers confidence that your products are of high quality and in demand.  It can also drive future demand of these items and create urgency to buy for those regular customers who see an hot item return to stock.

Another way to create urgency to buy would be to display a “Low Stock” message when items pass below a certain threshold. If the exact number of items is included in the data feed, a message such as “Hurry Only 7 Left” could be used.

For other retailers, the idea of showing any out of stock is completely unacceptable.  These retailers may turn their inventory quickly and know that most out of stock items are likely in transit or in the building waiting to be checked in.  They could also have the type of customer who has an immediate and specific need to fill that will simply look elsewhere when an item is out of stock.  For these retailers, the answer may be to display a “Please Call” message rather than an out of stock. This way, when the potential customer calls, they can check to see when the item is due to arrive or suggest an alternate product. This is the approach that SuperWarehouse takes in the example below and even conveniently displays their phone number to make it easy for customers to pick up the phone.

The question of stock status can get a bit more complicated for apparel retailers who stock multiple sizes of an item.  One of the best examples of this is with shoes.  To solve the problem of how to display the stock status on an item like this, outdoor gear retailer Snow and Rock presents the stock info in an small window that appears when shoppers hover over the “view” link.  The technology then uses AJAX to retrieve the stock status of each size of that item.  Loading this stock status on demand helps improve the load time of the initial search results.

Have you found other ways to use a products stock status or stock level to improve the customer experience and drive sales? If so, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

What do you see when you look at your top search terms report? I typically see brand terms and product category terms in many of the top spots.  I also see a great opportunity to create a more customized experience on the search results pages for those terms.  Since these are high volume terms, the extra effort you put into these pages is likely to produce a nice ROI.  And, when you consider that these terms typically produce hundreds or perhaps thousands of results, you know shoppers will be looking for some way to help them narrow down the results.  This is when a hybrid search / category page makes the most sense.  This is your opportunity to create a more engaging brand or category experience and present yourself as an expert in these types of products.

A hybrid search / category landing page can feel more like a store within your store.  It can combine elements you would typically find on a category page like a large header graphic, copy that introduces the brand or category, related promotions, and featured sections.  It can also include more prominent filters to help shoppers quickly begin to narrow their results.

In the example below from sporting goods retailer Sports Unlimited, they have created a hybrid search / category page for the brand Under Armour.  Anyone who searches for “under armor” and sees this page will immediately know they have found the brand they were looking for.  They will also be able to quickly begin shopping by men, women or youth or shop by the type of gear they are looking for.  Seeing familiar Under Armour graphics for their heat gear along with a related image of those products is going to make getting there much easier than beginning to hunt through the refinement options in the navigation pane to the left.

For shoppers that don’t see what they are looking for in this top section or simply want to browse, the bottom half of the page will be filled with the most popular products from that brand or a selection of items that the merchandiser has decided to promote.  And, shoppers will still have all of the typical search refinements to explore and narrow down their selection.

To customize the format of the results further, the merchandiser could create a hybrid of a list view and grid view results page.  In the Under Armour example, that search result page would look like this.

With a hybrid search / category landing page, merchandisers can also quickly create a special selection of products to support a promotional idea or seasonal campaign without having to involve their web engineering or production team.  Once the initial hybrid template is created, all sorts of experiences can be built with just a few new graphics and copy. For example, when Abe’s of Maine wanted to create a gift guide that featured a special selection of products at different price points, they decided to create the hybrid search / category page below.

This gift guide includes prominent buttons for gift price points at the top of the page.  Once a shopper arrives at the gift guide, all they need to do is select the dollar amount they want to spend and they’ll be presented with ideas that were hand-selected by an Abe’s of Maine expert merchandiser. To include any product in a group, all the merchandiser had to do was tag those products with a keyword like “great_gifts_50″ and then pass that keyword in with the link to their site search engine.

As you can see, the design and layout of the pages that you can create with a hybrid search / category template is unlimited.  This gives merchandisers a great deal of flexibility to improve how they present products in order to improve the sales of their categories.

These pages can even help merchandisers improve the conversion rate from their paid advertising campaigns or email promotions.  For example, many paid search terms with good traffic are not ideally suited for a category page nor do they make sense for a specific product page.  This is where a hybrid page could provide the ideal balance between a branded experience and a search result page. The result being reduced bounce rates and improved sales conversion rates.

If you have more ideas for how a merchandiser can utilize a hybrid search / category landing page, please post them in the comments below.

Behind every great site search experience sits a rich set of information that describes every possible search result.  For retailers, this product information is in the form of attribute labels or tags that have been assigned to each product.  With these tags in place, search engines can more accurately match products with search keywords as well as power advanced refinement options.  This includes options like the dynamic search refinements discussed in an earlier blog post.

In order to super charge your site search experience, you’ve got to get beyond the basics of tagging your products.  By basics I’m referring to those attributes which all products have in common such as a name, description, brand, and price.  Going beyond this means tagging your products with specific attributes that are unique to each type of product.  For instance, shirts are going to have different attributes than televisions.  Shirts will have attributes like gender, age group, material, style, and so on.  Then, any given style of shirt is going to come in different sizes and perhaps colors.

Another type of tag that can be extremely helpful for shoppers is one that describes the use of a product.  A downhill ski for example might be tagged as beginner, intermediate or advanced to identify the appropriate level of skier it is best suited for.  A bouquet of flowers could be tagged with phrases like mothers day or get well.  These product use tags can enable you to support a wide range of merchandising initiatives with landing pages built automatically by your search engine.

Examples of search filters based on product use:

Tags to indicate the status of a product can be a powerful tool for driving sales.  A tag that indicates if a product is new, on sale, or qualifies for free shipping can be used to power the display of graphic overlay flags or other graphic tags in your search results that will attract attention to those items.  Tags like top seller, staff pick or star ratings will help you merchandise products based on popularity.  An example of this type of tagging can be seen in the search results from sporting goods retailer Sports Unlimited.

Some retailers have even invited their customers to assist with tagging by providing the ability to add a tag on the product detail page or within the process of writing a product review.  This crowd-sourced tagging approach can be an extremely efficient way to supplement your product information with descriptive words that you might never have thought of to describe a product.  These terms can then be fed to your site search engine so it can return results based on the opinions of other customers.

When you combine this detailed product information with a powerful search engine, shoppers get an incredible tool for helping them compare products and narrow down what they ultimately want to buy.  Helping shoppers move more quickly through the consideration and preference stages of the customer buying cycles will drastically increase the chances of converting them into sales.

Now that many retailers have made video a key component in their merchandising strategy, we are seeing more studies about the impact that video is having.  According to a recent study by e-commerce video provider Invodo, 52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in their online purchase decisions. For some, video has been found to have a tremendous impact on improving conversion rates. In one study conducted by housewares e-tailer StacksAndStacks.com, visitors were 144% more likely to purchase after seeing a product video than those who did not. And these are just a couple of many stories you’ll find with a simple Google search for “video increase conversion.”

Stories like these certainly are great news for those retailers who have made the effort to produce videos and now have a growing library of video content to show their customers.  For those who have not made that investment yet, you now have plenty of evidence to make a strong business case for it.

For most retailers, their focus has been on producing quality videos and figuring out how to incorporate these videos into their product landing pages.  However, few of them have picked up on a little idea to get even more value from their video.  And that idea is to merchandise their video through their site search.

It’s been over two years since Shaun Ryan blogged about “Incorporating video into site search” where he showed an example from etrailer.com that included a tiny “TV” icon next to the caption of products that included video.  For many SLI Systems customers, this may have been the spark that got them to think creatively about how to merchandise their videos. As a result, we now have many more examples of the creative ways retailers can incorporate video into their site search results.

The evolution of the example from etrailer.com has been to include a video thumbnail into the search listing that includes video. In the example below from Cruiser Customizing, you can see a video thumbnail directly below the product image.

To enable customers to see this video quickly, Cruiser Customizing made this thumbnail an active link that starts playing the video over the search results when clicked.

A simpler and elegant way to show that a product contains a video can be seen in this example from Motorcycle Superstore.  They have included a field in their data feed to indicate the presence of a video.  Then, based on that information, SLI displays a graphic overlay above the product image with blue “Video” flag.

To make video an integral part of the search experience, some now show videos related to the search results is a separate section on the results page as well as behind a video tab.  In the example below from 24 Hour Fitness, this video results section appears below their page results.

An example of showing videos behind a tab can be seen below from the bead and jewelry supply retailer Artbeads.com.  These videos which show up in a search for “earring” are designed to help teach customers how to make jewelry.

If the thought of incorporating video into your site search results raises concerns about the time and technical resources you will need, you may be surprised to find out how easily it can be done.  For retailers like Artbeads.com who have created a large video library on YouTube, getting this content integrated into their site search was as simple as making a call to their SLI Client Services Manager and sharing the link to their YouTube page.  SLI is then able to crawl their YouTube page to gather all of the video content and ensure that new videos find their way into the search results automatically.

It’s exciting to see all of the creative ways retailers are now putting video to work in their site search and it will be interesting to see how this evolves in the coming years.  With the mass adoption of tablets, whose users have an even greater appetite for video, I’m sure we will begin to see an even greater penetration of video shown in the search results of tablet optimized e-commerce sites.

If you’ve seen a creative use of video in site search results, please share that with us in the comments below.

While Henry Ford was great at making cars, he clearly missed a key opportunity to delight his customers when he said, “People can have the Model T in any color – so long as it’s black.” Fortunately, today’s consumers have an endless array of color options when they shop for everything from cars to handbags.  And, being able to find a product in just the right color has become an important part of the shopping experience and I would suspect something customers except to do more often than not.

Since customers often begin to shop using your site’s search, you’ll want to make sure your products are accurately tagged with the appropriate color or colors.  This way, when a customer conducts a search including the color they want, they will get relevant results.  In the example below, you can see how a search for “red dress” on the children’s clothing retailer Chasing Fireflies produces a fantastic assortment of red dresses.

Products such as shirts or handbags often come in a variety of colors.  Shoppers for these items will often want to consider the style and color at the same time.  A great example of this can be seen in the site search of handbag producer and retailer Dooney & Bourke.  As their customers search for handbags, they are presented with circular color swatches below each item that represent the colors and patterns available for that item.  To make shopping even more fun, Dooney & Bourke made these swatches interactive by dynamically changing out the product image to display the related item as you mouse over the color swatches.  As you can see from the screen shot below, some of these handbags come in a wide assortment of colors.  This functionality really enhances the aspect of exploration and discovery to the shopping experience and makes it much more fun.

For many customers, finding the right color product is more than just something to browse, it’s a must have.  For instance, they may be looking for a specific color handbag to match exactly with their new outfit or they may need to find orange colored candy to complement the decorations at their child’s birthday party.

To help customers shop by color, some retailers have included color in their search refinements.  For bead supplier Artbeads.com, color is so important to the purchase process that they have placed it at the top of their search refinements.

To make shopping by color more visual and fun, they have created custom color icons to display as search refinements. A couple of other examples of this can be seen below from two candy retailers A Candy Store and Jelly Belly.

Now, before you race off to incorporate color into your site search, I do want to refer you to another blog from Shaun Ryan entitled “Refining search results by color/colour,” in which Shaun points out some of the challenges color filtering can present and showcases some clever solutions you can use to overcome these challenges.

Basic search refinements make it easy for customers to find what they are looking, but dynamic search refinements can supercharge your site search experience and provide a host of other usability benefits. They can help customers find exactly what they are looking for more quickly, make it easier to compare products, and reduce the risk of purchasing the wrong product.

Dynamic search refinements go beyond basic filter criteria such as price or brand. They are comprised of specific product features and specifications. And, they only appear in the product categories where they are relevant. In this example from Wholesale Tool, when a customer begins his search for a drill, he is presented with a relatively small list of refinements including category, origin and price range. Then, as he narrows the selection down to the “Air Tools” category, he is presented with many more refinements that are specific to the available air tools. This includes product specifications like the type of air inlet, average air consumption, RPM, and net weight.

Refinements for “Drill”	Refinements After Selecting “Air Tools”

These search refinements change dynamically based on the product category that is selected. If the customer decides he wants to look at bits for his new drill, the refinements change to include things like size, type, flute length, diameter, and more. And, with over 200 types of drill bits to choose from, you can see how helpful this would be for a customer who was only interested in drill bits that had a flute length of 1-3/4 inches. Selecting that would quickly narrow the list of choices down to just five.

Another helpful feature is that the refinement groups are sticky. Thus, the customer can select one brand of drill bits and then narrow the selection further to a specific size of drill bit from that brand. Using dynamic search refinements also helps you improve usability by minimizing the filter options early in the search and ensuring that they only expand with options that are relevant to the product category of interest.

When your product catalog includes items that have features and specifications that are important buying criteria for your customers, consider implementing dynamic search refinements to improve their site search experience.

Deciding what product information to include in your site search results can be tricky.  Should you take the approach of “the more the better” or look at this as “less is more?”  The answer should ultimately be determined by your customers and a determination of what will produce the best results for your business.

From the customer perspective, you need to find out what information they most want to see when conducting a search.  Are your customers using search as a way to browse your catalog of products? Or, are they looking for the best deals, or simply trying to find an exact match to an item that they have the part number for?  The answer could influence your decision to display larger product images, original and discounted pricing, or part numbers.

From a business perspective, you’ll want to include enough product information to keep your customers engaged and feeling confident they will find what they are looking for. But, you also want to move them towards making a purchase decision. If your customers typically purchase when items are on sale, calling attention to discounted items would likely increase your conversion rate.

One of the best ways to begin working through the process of deciding what product information to include in your site search results is to start with a complete list of the types of information that you could include.  To help you get started, I have compiled the following list of a variety of product information that other retailers have included along with some examples of how that information is displayed.

Product Name – The product name is something you will most always find in site search results. It will typically appear below the product image however some retailers have placed it above the image.

Product Image – The product image is always included in the search results but the size of the image can vary greatly from one retailer to the next as you can see below.

Product Description – A full or partial product description is not shown by many retailers especially when results are displayed in a grid view.  However, when products are displayed in a list view, a product description is more often included.

Grid View

List View

Product SKU or Part # – A specific part number or item code is not used very often but can be important for those who sell parts or whose products are also sold through print catalogs.

Price – The price of the product is almost always included.  When an item is on sale, many retailers will also include the original price with the discounted price.  Some will also include the amount of any savings either in a dollar amount or percentage.

Stock Status – Some retailers will indicate if the product is in stock while others will only show the stock status when the item is out of stock.  Another option that can help create some urgency to purchase is showing the actual quantity of items in stock.

Star Ratings – Including a graphic representation of the average number of stars a product has received by customers is a relatively common element to include in the site search results.  Some retailers who include this will also add star ratings to a search refinement or sort criteria.

Facebook Likes and Pinterest Pin It – Some retailers have begun to include the Facebook Like button or Pinterest Pin It buttons to enable customers to share more easily. This will usually also include an indication of the number of times the item has been liked or pinned. In the case of likes, this number can then be used as a criteria to sort by.

Promotional Flags – To call more attention to items that are new or on sale, some retailers will display a special graphic overlay on the product image.

Lots of online retailers incorporate personalization into different aspects of their websites to give customers a more intimate and familiar shopping experience. Did you know you can also personalize your site search? Some of our customers are doing interesting things in this area that might work well on your site too, as described below.

Search history: A list of the visitor’s recent searches, or a search history, is a nice way to say “welcome back” to customers – it means shoppers don’t need to remember the exact spelling of a product, and can remind them about a previous search. See how FTD.com does this — they show previous search terms when visitors return to the site and click on the search icon next to the search box, listing “Recent Searches” above the refinement options.

Include brand or product preferences: You can allow customers to narrow down the content or product choices they see when they search your site by storing their preferences so that on future visits, they don’t need to reenter them. For example, Cruiser Customizing lets shoppers preselect a make and model for their motorcycle so that site searches only yield items suitable for that particular bike.

Localize site search results: Ask shoppers to enter their address or zip code as they search so they only see results relevant to their location. Tractor Supply asks visitors for their zip codes as soon as they come to the site’s home page, allowing the company to deliver product availability and pricing based on location.

Link with social networks: Consider allowing visitors to use their Facebook profile as their account login, so they can see who in their social networks have “liked” a product or “pinned” it to their Pinterest board, or other activities they’ve engaged in.

Personalize by device: As consumers switch from PCs, tablets, and smartphones, it’s a plus when a website can tailor the experience based on which device they’re using, and perhaps even where they are. You can display merchandising banners on site search or other pages that highlight past activities or purchases on the particular device, and show local content such as store addresses and promotions when visitors  log in to your site from a mobile device. Consider also adding the “Search History” described above to your mobile site, so the visitor can access their past search terms no matter what platform they’re on.

What other ways are you personalizing the shopping experience on your own site?