As human interactions become more and more digitalized, your business and personal websites have become far more important than a couple of decades ago.
When a user lands on your website, it's essential to help the user find the right information as effectively as possible. Otherwise, the user may leave the website, losing potential business opportunities or visibility.
One of the important ways to improve website design and help users find the information they want is to make the site searchable using the search functionality. It enables users to find content by searching for particular words without understanding or exploring the entire website or app, a quick or less complex way to find content.
Let's discuss why your website needs to have search functionality and its benefits.
Eliminate Site Navigation Hustle
If you have a large site -- assuming an e-commerce website or having hundreds of pages, users could find it extremely challenging to navigate to what they're looking for. In this situation, a search box allows your users to see what they need with a quick search.
Regardless of where each user lands on your website, a search box will help them quickly find specific topics or pages.
Improve User Engagement and Reduce Bounce Rate
Simply, the more straightforward it is for users to navigate around your entire website, the more probable that they will explore it.
If it's difficult for users to track down what they're looking for, they'll head off to somewhere else that can fulfill their requirements. Help your users engage quite a bit on your site with a search textbox.
Take Advantage of Search Functionality
Assuming you can incorporate your search bar into your Google Analytics, you'll have the option to track how frequently individuals look for a specific term. You can utilize this data for on-page content, order details, or billing plans.
For example, if the most searched item on your website is Perfume, you could create a separate section or link on the home page so that users can directly navigate to that item faster.
Mobile Users Prefer Search
In this mobile era, it's critical to ensure your site and applications are mobile-friendly. Whenever users are on their mobile phones, they could be out and in a hurry, and a search feature will allow them to search and navigate to a specific page rapidly.
It's A Distinct Feature Users Expect
People are habitual to using some features to the level that they don't think much before using them. Search functionality is one of them. In this digital world, you can't have a site that doesn't offer an ideal user experience. Keep in mind that this minor component can significantly help increase your website’s engagement rates.
Helps Improve Branding
As the number of site visits increases, it indicates an improvement in brand engagement. Users visit your site because they are happy with the information and experience. This helps to raise your brand image among other competitors in your market.
Reinforce SEO
A positive user experience will lead to more visits to your site. As the visitors' count and time spent on your website increase, search engines like Google will consider your website performing well and of good quality, which will further elevate your page rankings in search results.
You will also find some new keywords from users' searches to search for similar or different information on Google or other search engines. These search keywords can be those words that you want to target in SEO and other marketing and search strategies.
Boosts Growth
As you expand your website with new content, blog posts, or new products, it can make your website cumbersome and affect user experience. Accordingly, finding an exact item can become difficult. However, with the right site search strategy, website size or navigation does not hamper the user experience. Users can find what they need and get ideas for other related items.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, search functionality on your website helps offer a smooth, consistent experience for your users. And a well-implemented search functionality has more potential to ensure the website's success.
Try not to stop your users from exploring all the features your site offers; add search functionality to your site soon!
