Conversion rates double when people use an ecommerce site search and find what they are looking for.
For that to happen, an on-site search has to be effective. It has to understand the user query perfectly, get to the core of the intent, and return a matching result.
One of the best ways to achieve that is to empower synonyms. When supported correctly, synonyms drastically increase the accuracy of search results.
So, what role do synonyms play in an ecommerce site search? And how can you make the most of synonyms in your store?
What are synonyms in an ecommerce site search?
Synonyms are words or phrases that have the same or similar meanings. For example, “shoes” and “footwear” are synonyms.
In ecommerce, the same applies to the vocabulary differences between the UK and the US. In this case, “sneakers” and “trainers” could be considered synonyms.
As an ecommerce business owner, you can use synonyms to help customers find products even if they do not use the exact term used on the website.
It is especially critical for customers who are not familiar with the technical terms used in the industry or who may use different terminology than what is used on the website.
What role do effectively used synonyms play in site search?
Synonyms are one of the most search experts-recommended strategies to improve user satisfaction, increase search relevancy, and boost sales.
Incorporating synonyms into site search can significantly enhance user satisfaction by improving the relevance of search results, as shown by the positive impact of website features on user search satisfaction in e-commerce environments [1]
How?
How can you incorporate synonyms into your ecommerce site search?
Manual synonym dictionary
One common method is to use a synonym dictionary. It is a list of synonyms for frequent terms used in the industry.
To do that, you can use custom synonym functionality to manually add predefined matches for similar words (for instance, you can add TV, Television, and Televisor as synonyms).
Besides, you can always get back to your search data and analyze what terms people use to search for products. If you notice customers using different wording for the same item, add those phrases as synonyms.
The good thing about LupaSearch is that it has a super user-intuitive dashboard. You don’t need extensive programming knowledge to make adjustments in your ecommerce search. You can add synonyms effortlessly.
Automated translation
Some of the synonyms-related processes are automated.
For instance, such AI-powered ecommerce search solutions as LupaSearch automatically understand words with similar meanings [2].
For example, your customers can search without language-specific letters. The ecommerce site search will automatically convert the words from Latin to language-specific letters and take them as synonyms.
The same applies to misspellings and typos. Even if the user makes a mistake, an effective site search algorithm corrects the word and delivers a search result regardless of typos.
Auto-generated query corrections
Another way to improve your site search relevancy is to automatically clarify all users’ requests, so you return as relevant results as possible.
The ecommerce site search should offer search query suggestions in real-time when a user types a request.
Also, if a user makes a mistake in his query and the search returns no results (or the amount of results is low) LupaSearch suggests “did you mean” queries with possible spelling errors corrected, according to the data in the product feed.
Such automated query suggestions and corrections can drastically improve search relevancy and increase customer satisfaction.
In the end, incorporating synonyms into your ecommerce site search is a powerful strategy for a rapid sales boost.
By making it easier for customers to find what they are looking for, ecommerce stores can immediately improve customer satisfaction and drive more conversions [3, 4, 2].
Incorporate synonyms into your ecommerce site search. Contact the LupaSearch product consultant, and let’s have a productive conversation.
References
Palanisamy, R., & Liu, Y. (2018). Users’ Search Satisfaction in Search Engine Optimization. Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24643-3_124.
Trotman, A., Kallumadi, S., & Dagenhardt, J. (2020). Introduction to special issue on eCommerce search and recommendation. Information Retrieval Journal, 23, 115 - 116. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10791-020-09370-4.
Alpert, S., Karat, J., Karat, C., Brodie, C., & Vergo, J. (2003). User Attitudes Regarding a User-Adaptive eCommerce Web Site. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 13, 373-396. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026201108015.
Zviran, M., Glezer, C., & Avni, I. (2006). User satisfaction from commercial web sites: The effect of design and use. Inf. Manag., 43, 157-178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2005.04.002.