Managing Search Terms

You can learn what your customers are looking for by examining the search terms they use to find products in your store. If enough people are looking for a product that you don’t carry, perhaps it’s time to add it to your catalog. Meanwhile, rather than have them leave them empty handed, why not redirect them to another product in your catalog? Here are a few ways you can leverage customer search terms:

Landing Page

The landing page for a search term can be a content page, a category page, a product detail page, or even a page on a different site.

Synonyms

One way to improve the effectiveness of catalog search is to include different terms that people may use to describe the same item. You don’t want to lose a sale just because someone is looking for a “sofa,” and your product is listed as a “couch.” You can capture a broader range of search terms by entering the words, “sofa” “davenport,” and “loveseat” as synonyms for “couch,” and direct them to the same landing page.

Misspelled Words

Use search terms to capture common misspellings and redirect them to the appropriate page. For example, if you sell wrought iron patio furniture, you know that many people misspell the term as “rod iron,” or even “rot iron.” You can enter each misspelled word as a search term, and make them synonyms for “wrought iron.” Even though the word is misspelled, the search will be directed to the page for “wrought iron.”