People make mistakes while they search - that’s a fact you cannot disregard as a retailer. Why?
Because every typo can lead to a failed user search request.
If your customer is looking for a “swimwer” and your website search engine does not provide results for swimwear, you might lose a large part of potential sales.
How can you handle misspellings and typos in your ecommerce site search to deliver a satisfying user experience?
Why does a typo-proof site search matter?
Users who use site search contribute to approximately 40% of total business revenue.
However, to capitalize on this, the e-commerce store must satisfy users’ search requests and deliver accurate product matches.
That’s why enhancing customer support and integrating smart services into e-commerce platforms can significantly improve conversion rates by reducing user abandonment [1].
Yet, roughly 84% of companies do not allocate resources to optimize and improve their site search effectiveness.
In more than half of the websites, users must use the exact product naming as on the website (like “hair dryer”). If a user enters a different word for the product (like “blow dryer”), the search engine returns a zero-result page.
Now that is a costly missed opportunity.
If customers cannot find the products they are looking for, they tend to feel frustrated and abandon the website.
Therefore, a typo-proof search function can increase the chances of customers finding what they are looking for, enjoying a seamless user experience, and making a purchase.
How can you achieve that?
How to handle misspellings and typos in a site search?
Effectively handling misspellings and typos is a critical step in improving user experience and increasing conversion rates.
Advanced typo-tolerant spell checkers, specifically designed for e-commerce, have proven to enhance user experience by accurately correcting domain-specific errors and improving search results [2].
Here are a few strategies to achieve this:
1. Use spell-check
Make sure your ecommerce site search supports spell-check functionality regardless of the user language. Typo-tolerant spell checkers in e-commerce platforms can significantly improve search accuracy by recognizing and correcting spelling errors, enhancing the overall user experience [2].
It should automatically recognize the typo, correct it, or suggest a correct spelling variation.
This way, it ensures that customers are presented with the correct products even if they have made a spelling mistake.
2. Never abandon low-volume search results
Check how your site search processes low-volume search results.
If a user makes a mistake in his query and the search returns no results (or the amount of results is pretty low), the search engine should suggest a “did you mean” query.
It should provide possible queries with spelling errors corrected, according to the data in your product feed.
3. Add synonyms
Another effective strategy to handle misspellings is to include synonyms in the search functionality. Interactive design elements like synonym management can enhance search relevance and improve conversion rates by providing users with accurate results despite varied search terms [3].
Use custom synonym functionality to add predefined matches for similar words (like TV, Television, Televisor), to ensure users always find what they are looking for.
To understand how your users name your products:
- Think of different ways people call the same products (US-UK English differences, jargon);
- Run market research and ask your audience (directly on a website or company’s social media account);
- Look at site search statistics. It should provide an overview of how your store visitors search for and name your products. Use this data to update the synonym database.
Custom synonyms allow you to easily adapt the search experience for your specific product assortment.
4. Turn on Similar Queries
You might greatly benefit from turning on Similar Queries for multi-word queries that return a low amount of results (or none).
Select a site search that offers the ability to configure Similar Queries. Incorporating interactive design features like similar queries can reduce zero-result searches and improve user engagement, ultimately increasing conversion rates [3].
Your site search might suggest similar phrases, without one or more of the words in the original search phrase, to reduce the amount of zero results queries.
It can significantly improve your search relevancy, satisfy more user requests, and drastically boost conversion rates.
Get to the core of search queries regardless of typos with LupaSearch
If you are looking for an effective ecommerce site search that always gets to the core of users’ search queries, look no further than LupaSearch.
LupaSearch is an AI-powered ecommerce site search that delivers a satisfying user experience despite typos and misspellings.
With LupaSearch, you can enhance search functionality, improve product discoverability, and ultimately increase customer engagement and sales.
You can use LupaSearch on any major platform with no coding experience. The LupaSearch team is here to assist you in your business growth journey.
Contact the LupaSearch product consultant today and receive a free demo.
References
Sobecki, A., Szymański, J., Krawczyk, H., Mora, H., Gil, D. (2020). Smart Services for Improving eCommerce. In: Zamojski, W., Mazurkiewicz, J., Sugier, J., Walkowiak, T., Kacprzyk, J. (eds) Theory and Applications of Dependable Computer Systems. DepCoS-RELCOMEX 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1173. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48256-5\_56.
Ubrangala, D., Sharma, J., Kondapalli, R., Rama, K., Agarwala, A., & Bou’e, L. (2023). Domain specificity and data efficiency in typo tolerant spell checkers: the case of search in online marketplaces. ArXiv, abs/2308.01976. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2308.01976.
Rano, A., & Sungkur, R. (2019). The impact of interactive design as a conversion rate optimisation tool for e-commerce. International Journal of Information Systems and Management. https://doi.org/10.1504/ijisam.2019.10025254.