New smartphones are introduced seemingly every day, giving consumers even more choices on how to make these devices an integral part of their daily lives – for instance, using smartphones while shopping and socialising. With each new product iteration from Apple, Google, and other smartphone OS providers, it becomes easier for consumers to use fun new features like location-aware apps.
Ecommerce companies need to keep pace with the explosive growth of the smartphone and app markets, since their mobile websites must meet the challenges of browsing, searching, and shopping on a small screen. This is especially true of site search, which is a key feature for allowing shoppers to find products and content. It’s also an important tool for online retailers because site search users typically convert at a higher rate.
Below are ideas on making mobile sites more search-friendly – you can read more suggestions in our “Big Book of Site Search Tips,” available at http://getsliebooks.com.uk.
Highlight your search box: It’s good practice to make the search box easy to find on a regular desktop website, but it’s crucial that you do so with your mobile site. Place the search box prominently at the top of your mobile webpage – it should be one of the most obvious features.
Use Auto Complete to help shoppers save time: When mobile shoppers browse your site without the need for many clicks to new pages, they can view products in less time, make buying decisions faster, and also reduce typing errors. Adding an Auto Complete feature will suggest search keywords when visitors start typing the first letters, which helps customers find what they want with fewer keystrokes. To take this usability feature to the next level, you can add Rich Auto Complete, which displays the name, image, description and price for relevant products within search results.
Allow for expandable refinements: Refinements are very useful for mobile shoppers, since they make it easier to narrow down search results. Standard websites offer much more screen space, which means that refinements can be placed on the left-hand side of the screen or at the top. On a mobile screen, it’s better to show expanding lists of refinements to save space.
Use infinite scrolling: Infinite scrolling is the feature you see when you view feeds on social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. As you reach the end of the page, new posts load automatically. You can do the same for site search results – as visitors get to the end of visible results, more results are loaded automatically, creating an endless scroll.
Localise site search results: Customers love seeing localised information that is delivered via a device’s GPS tracking. You can provide localised results through GPS data or by allowing shoppers to enter their address or postal code as they search so they only see results that are relevant to their location. This feature can bring mobile shoppers to your physical stores where they can see, touch and experience products up close.
Add keyword-specific banners to generate interest: When mobile customers search for a brand name or product that is on sale, display a keyword-driven banner at the top of the search results page to highlight the promotion.
Test mobile search options on an ongoing basis, and monitor mobile visitor behavior so that you know which approaches and features are working. Change is a given in the m-commerce world – so keep things fresh and engage with your on-the-run customers.