Sitecore based sites search features based on personalization

Why search is so important features for any site?

Let me take back you to old days. Remember the time when we used to have old telephone directories where if you want to search for some number then you go to index, search by alphabetic order and then find where you last name (or first name) stands and find page and then go to page itself. Voilà

Think about of user experience. So much for searching number for someone.

Search is so important feature that helps users get converted to lead. Visitors who usually perform search usually spend more time on your site as they are interested in content/products/solutions or information that your site is providing and has much higher chances to conversion than visitors who do not perform the search.

Now refocusing on what can be search features for sites.

Personalized Faceted Search Filters:  Yes site search now should be moving from just faceted search filters to personalized faceted search filters. So if I am searching for books yes because I am avid reader and go for search. I have filters like New Arrivals, Languages, format, discount and price. Are you really showing me price & discount, I told you that I am avid reader and I do read books by interest and not by price. Hmm! I don’t want to have this filter every time I come for searching the books. Then so I want to get rid of this filter. So personalize it either based on his/her past behavior or if he/she explicitly select that please don’t show me this again. But note I don’t want to remove this filter for any other search like for electronic items because I am price conscious when I buy electronic items and always looks for discount.

Search Box position: Simple rule – Easy to find. Search box should be at the position which should be easy to find. It can be on top middle, top right, top below navigation. You can try different positions. I always suggest our clients to use multivariate (A/B) testing in Sitecore and provide different variation for search box position and find which one results in more searches and eventually conversions. After testing period, chose the winner and go with that position for search box.

Personalize Auto Complete: This is one of most commonly used features and will continue to be. Few points to ensure better use of Auto complete.

• Show content with context – So if you are showing name of lawyer then show Name with his practice/sectors & position or movie name with genres.
• Personalize the content based his past behavior so for example if I was not interested in out of stock items then I can exclude them.

Progressive Search: This is kind of new concept. Basically it is to provide new fields, filters based on visitors past experience. So for example if I use price filter a lot then I can provide price filter along with search box or if I am always interested in some specific seller then visitor can be provided with option to select top 5 sellers from visitor’s past experience. This helps in getting relevant results to users.

Personalize Suggestive Search: This is concept to help visitor help in finding what he/she wants to find even if he/she does not know in very clear terms. So two concept here:

• Show results always – Even if user types incorrect keyword or misspedlled (like I did), even then show him/her some similar results. So for example I tried to search “Wiscnsin” which is misspelled version of “Wisconsin” then search engine should help me in searching the results by correcting the keyword.
• Personalized results – Personalized the results in order to make it more relevant for user. So for example if I search “QBR” and I was reviewing information regarding say on “How to become successful customer manager” before then it should me results for advantage of Quarterly business review at top. And If I was reviewing information regarding say on “American football” before then it should me results for advantage of Total Quarterback Rating at top.

Personalized Filters: Personalized the relevant filters. Wow that are two same words in one line. Well here how it is conceptualized. Show relevant filters. So I am showing the list of books with filter options like Discount available, pricing, seller etc. These are relevant filters. I think I talked about personalized facets then please personalize filters also. So remove pricing or discount as I am not interested and I have already mentioned to you.

Record search based user journey: Record/log everything like

• Keywords entered.
• Facets shown.
• How faceted used.
• Results clicked.
• Search pages viewed.
• Time spent on different pages, results etc.
• Customer journey from keyword to search results to view page to any call to action button to actual conversion if hopefully.

This will provide you so heavenly insights into your visitors thought process, think lines, decision criteria. You can use these insights to improve your search in much faster degree and prominence.

Mobile Friendly: This is so much important as a lot of traffic comes from mobile devices. Search box as well search results should be highly customized for mobile devices.