Feature: Why Does Better Site Search Generate More Sales?

People often ask us how something as simple as site search can bring a company more sales. Think about it. When people search on your site, they're giving you keywords that explicitly convey their desires. If your site search delivers results with relevant products that match those desires, then you have an excellent opportunity to make a sale. On the other hand, if your site search doesn't offer the right results, people will either assume you don't have what they want or they'll get frustrated and leave your site. More importantly, you may have lost an opportunity for a long-lasting relationship with this customer, all because of poor site search.

Second to relevance is the presentation of the results. The results should contain the right descriptive information that confirms to the user that you have what they want. Images should tantalize their senses, and search terms should be highlighted. The results should also be devoid of meaningless information such as URLs, page sizes, and relevance indicators but should contain plenty of other structured information such as price and availability, and provide a clear path for the next steps - such as "add to cart" or "click here for more information." If the search results fail to satisfy the user, you need to provide other options for refining or reordering the search results. Additionally, related terms can be used to guide visitors to other product areas.

To request a case study describing how one SLI client achieved a tripling of conversion and a dramatic increase in the usage of their site search, click here or to read more about some of our customers' successes, visit.

Tips 'n' Tricks: Your Web site is Trying to Tell You Something?

Internet Retailer magazine recently reported on 10 metrics to watch to ensure quality site performance. The #1 recommendation was to study site search results, and non-results. "...retailers lose a lot of sales because consumers can't find what they want...". We couldn't agree more.

If you have any tips or tricks you'd like to share, email us at newsletter@sli-systems.com.

SLI Systems & Customers in the News

Below are links to recent announcements and news articles highlighting our Learning Search service:

SLI Brings Suite of E-commerce Search Solutions to UK Market
July 5