Enrich the Mobile Site Search Experience to Maximise Conversions.

Mobile experiences differ in many ways to desktop and can drive higher bounce rates if not designed properly. 

It’s no breaking news that mobile has overtaken desktop for web traffic. However, this is not the case with conversions on eCommerce sites where completed transactions for desktop still remain above mobile in preference. So why is this?…many stats have shown users prefer to use desktop over mobile to complete online transactions due to the lack of confidence in mobile security. However, there are new indicators that point to other issues regarding a stifled move towards greater mobile conversions. 

Two main issues with the Mobile site search experience. 

1. Screen size, as mobile viewpoints are obviously smaller, it presents eCommerce merchants with more headaches in maintaining a rich browsing experience.
2. A smaller viewpoint delivered on mobile obviously interrupts the flow of the quantity of viewable products that are available.

Both these issues can have a negative impact on the mobile user experience but also highlight the need to have an advanced and intelligent site search element installed to allow for fast product recall in search results. 

A report published by RichRelevance highlighted the main frustrations online shoppers have with site searches. 

Ways to Improve your Mobile Site Search Effectiveness. 

With mobile, site search space is very tight, smaller screens provide even more headache for designers and development teams to decide which is best to prioritise in keeping with a user centric approach. Nowadays more product searches are carried out through the use of site search rather than category searches. With this in mind and designing with a ‘mobile first’ methodology, site search on mobile should be more prominent and large in display, with autocomplete and suggestive functionality. This is what maintains user search interest and as a result lowers mobile bounce rates. 

eCommerce Catalogue management can have a direct impact on how quickly product search results appear on site search, that being said we have put together a cheat sheet to help you organise yours. 

Download Our eCommerce Catalogue Management Cheat Sheet 

Where do I start?

• Well if you are planning to rebuild your website it’s best to employ the services of a web design company who can guide you through what’s best for the mobile user experience.  

Other options… 

• Deploying heatmap software like Hotjar to analyse user behaviour is another first step, gathering vital information on how users behave on your mobile homepage through clicks and scrolls.
• Use your Google Analytics.

Check your Site Search Usage, do many visitors use your site search feature? There are simply ways to check if your site search is being used. Google analytics, when installed, can feed important data on user behaviour and more specifically site search stats.

Review your  Site Search Queries, it’s also important to establish what your most popular products are and being searched for on your site. These queries can help you build highly effective FAQ’s for your website developing and enhancing your SEO efforts and search visibility.

• Using autocomplete on Mobile Site Search. As previously mentioned the mobile landscape is tight and needs to be highly intuitive to reduce bounce rates and drive conversions. Autocomplete and error correct are an ideal feature to deploy on your mobile eCommerce site allowing suggestive but also accurate search queries to be performed even if typos are more frequent by users. 

More Insights on Best Practices in Mobile Product Page Design.    

Site Search Options for WordPress and Shopify.

There are many plugin options if you are using eCommerce platforms like WordPress’s WooCommerce or Shopify, we picked two that we feel would work best to enhance your mobile site search experience. 

SearchWP
Its main features allow for keyword stemming by showing a list of keyword stems instead of exact search terms. It has advanced site search capabilities highlighting what users are searching for and also what they are not finding. It also has the ability to pull products from detailed searches using product details and short codes. 

Instant Search + 
This App specifically designed for Shopify Mobile eCommerce sites. It uses AI for advanced site search for autocomplete, typo error, autocorrect did you mean and visual searches. It also has the capability to perform content based product searches, related, SKU and visual searches.  

More Insights on how Mobile has overtaken Desktop in the Beauty Industry.

Site Search Functionality & Best Practices.

• Design is vitally important to ensure your site search is highly visible on all devices.
• Choose autocomplete on your site search to allow for a faster, more user friendly search experience. 
• Allow your site search to be adaptive and ensure misspellings still have results. 
• Analyse your site search data, use this to build more relevance in your site keyword strategy and FAQ pages. 
• Be descriptive use images and content blurbs in your mobile site search results.

Key Takeaways.

If you are planing to develop a new site then it’s best talk with an agency that have the have experience developing on multi-platform eCommerce systems. If you have an existing site do your research first, use heatmaps or check your Google Analytics, see the usage of your site search. If it’s used regularly it might be worth looking further to see what search trends are showing and then apply them to your SEO and content strategy. 

Mobile Commerce differs in many ways to desktop, the most obvious one being the digital landscape. Don’t loose customers over unintuitive mobile experiences, design with a ‘mobile first’ approach. In terms of site search experiences it’s obvious to get it right on mobile in order to keep your customers engaged and drive conversions.

Is your mobile traffic greater than your desktop? Are your conversions on mobile still low compared to other devices? Why not contact izest Marketing here and lets start increasing your conversions on mobile.