This page, which acts as the online entrance to your business, is in charge of bringing in most of the visitors to your website. Nevertheless, despite its popularity, many businesses find it difficult to properly optimize it. Your homepage must serve many purposes, as you can see. It should be created to serve various audiences with a variety of origins, rather than being treated as a dedicated landing page focused on a single action.
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Table of Content
12 Effective Features:
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12 Effective Features:
1. The Search Box
The search box is the first element of your search function that the user will see, so make sure they do. It is a good idea to position the search box in the website's header so that it can be seen on every page because placement is crucial and you never know when someone might need to use it. Additionally, using colors that stand out will make it simpler to find. An auto-complete feature is available in some search boxes. This is comparable to when you search the web and Google makes a list of suggestions to guess what you're looking for.
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2. Categories
Your website's products should be organized into categories so that users can browse a category if they aren't looking for anything in particular and can easily search within a category to find relevant results. The quantity and variety of the products you stock will determine how many categories and subcategories you need. For instance, Amazon organizes its enormous inventory into broad categories like books, clothing, and music. Subcategories can then be chosen by users using filters.
3. Filters
A user can use filters to reduce their selection after entering a search term and choosing a category, such as by selecting a particular book genre. There may then be yet another list of sub-categories to choose from, as in the example below, if there is still a large selection of products available. Because they won't have to sift through pages of irrelevant products to find what they need, users are more likely to find something they like and buy it the more you can narrow their search.
4. Sort Function
You should also have a sort function in addition to filters. In addition to seeing the results listed with prices sorted from low to high, users may want to filter by price range. Other possible sorting options include sorting products alphabetically from newest to oldest. Users may also want to sort by price with or without postage if some products have different postage costs; eBay offers this feature, which is very helpful for comparing the overall cost of products.
5. Breadcrumb Trail
I don't know how I got to this results page. Of course, I looked up "websites" in the Books section, then narrowed my search to Computing & Internet, Web Development, Web Design, and finally Website Design. Well, this isn't what I was looking for. Fortunately, I can use this helpful breadcrumb trail to select a different section by selecting the Web Development category once more. Without my breadcrumbs, where would I be? I'm stuck in the Website Design category and unsure if I should relaunch my search.
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6. Product Details
What kind of product details should be included in the search results? Although there isn't much room for each product, you still need to give the user enough details to encourage them to click on it. You can view the catwalk video, choose a size, and add the item to your basket using ASOS's "quick view" feature, which allows you to see the essential information about a product without leaving the search results page. You can simply close the lightbox if you decide against buying the item, and you'll immediately return to the results page where you left off.
7. Out-of-Stock Items
You must also decide how if at all, out-of-stock items will appear when designing your search function. Nobody wants to click on a product they are interested in only to discover it is not available, so you don't want them to look the same as the other products on your search page. The results page should therefore contain some indication that the item is not currently available for purchase.
8. Products Displayed on Each Page
How many products are shown on the pages of your search results? Users do not want to continuously click "next" to view five products at once. They may even want to select the number of items they can view on a page.
9. The Introduction
Examine the introductory text at the top of the page as you peruse the search results page. If your page doesn't have any text at the top, you should think about adding some for the sake of SEO to include those crucial keywords that will help people find your products on Google and to make it easier for them to use the search function and navigate the results.
10. Nothing Found
On rare occasions, a user's search for a term returns no results. Then, what happens? A "nothing found" page ought to appear for them, but how helpful is yours? Does it assist customers in locating the product they seek in other ways? Does it offer search advice, suggest a different keyword they might have meant in their search, offer links to popular categories, or display your contact information in case they need assistance? An unsuccessful search could result in a purchase thanks to all of these factors.
11. Reliable Housekeeping
You must keep your house clean for your search function to work properly. This entails checking that all products are placed in the appropriate categories and have the appropriate attributes assigned to them. Anything less is careless, unprofessional, and incredibly unhelpful for the customer who is looking for table runners and doesn't want to see running shoes.
12. Search Logs
Lastly, monitor your search history. These will reveal what your customers are looking for, allowing you to determine what is popular and where you might be able to broaden your product offering.
Each visitor will learn about your company for the first time from your website. They'll look over your homepage before deciding whether or not to become a customer to get a sense of what you sell, why that matters to them, and how they can gain from what you have to offer. Use the elements mentioned above on your homepage to make a great first impression.
Why is the search function effective?
The user does not need to be aware of the correct spelling of the product name if the search function is effective. Even just entering the model number in the search field is sufficient. The search function should work just fine, even with compound nouns.
Which search strategies work best?
You will get too many results from your search because it is too broad. If you make them too specific, you'll receive too few. After reviewing your initial results, be ready to hone your search.
What first search strategy is best?
Heuristic search and the idea of a priority queue are both used in the best first search. This search algorithm follows a particular rule. The goal is to take the shortest route possible from the starting point to the destination.