Site Search: If it Don't Work, then Don't Use it!

As part of my job involves analyzing sites, I have come across many e commerce sites that have some serious issues that could significantly inhibit sales. One unfortunate common trend I’m seeing are site search features that do not work properly. According to Jupiter Research, 33% of customers look first to website search instead of navigation. This means if you decide to include site search, make sure that it can handle all the common misspellings, stem variations, and synonyms of inquiries. If it cannot, then searchers are going to be typing in products that you do carry, and search is going to tell them otherwise, and there went another sale down the drain! So once again, if your site search doesn’t work properly, then either fix it or get rid of it!