SLI Systems CEO on Complex Site Search

A basic website search will match phrases and words, but a money-making website search will help customers find what they are searching for and also indicate items they might not have known they needed. A pioneer in complex site search is SLI Systems, and its CEO, Shaun Ryan, joined us recently to discuss it.

Practical eCommerce: How can a strong site search help ecommerce websites drive sales?

Shaun Ryan:"By allowing people to get what they need on the website and making it easier to find content on the website. Individuals are more likely to generate a purchase if they have the ability to get what they want.

"That can work lots of ways. To begin with, we make sure you have fine, relevant search results so that when people type in a special keyword, they have the ability to find the products they're searching for. Additionally, giving people the perfect type of focus so that they can refine the results, and assisting people with their question formation so that they type in the ideal keyword phrases and [find] the products they're searching for.

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"To give you an example, one characteristic that we provide will indicate keywords that fit the characters that you have typed thus far. That helps individuals formulate their questions correctly, reduces confused typing and misspellings, and also makes them aware of just what you've got on the website."

Practical eCommerce: How can a sophisticated site search differ from a standard site search?

Ryan:"The distinction between a simple site search and a excellent site search is essentially in the performance and in the way the user experiences it.

"To get to the specifics, the first one is applicable outcomes. There's lots of experience that goes into the design of search results, or just how much content you put in the search results. You typically want an image, a title, a description for different goods, and also the price. You might choose to highlight whether the item is on sale. So, you might have the normal price struck out and the available price there. You might want to supply filters so that individuals can see only the products that are on sale.

"Frequently, the search which has a shopping cart is only going to search for goods, but you might have a great deal of non-product content on the website which you would like to ensure people can find, especially for visitors which are early in the buying cycle. You might have how-to guides or you might have blog posts or videos, and a fantastic website search will search all that content.

"Another feature that we see as extremely useful is associated searches, where on the search results page will say'here are a few related phrases' to the word that you typed. That helps users know other relevant products which you might have on your website, or related articles.

"Additionally, paying attention to what people are looking for is vitally important. You can find a good deal of extremely valuable information by watching what people are typing in the search box and making certain you have relevant content for it. That's really valuable data which you can action on."

PeC: How can your solution know from 1 ecommerce merchant to another what's a related thing and what's not?

Ryan:"We learn related search phrases by detecting the terms people use to locate products. If two different search phrases are utilized to find the identical solution, then we form a connection between those two search conditions. The more goods they have in common, the stronger the connection. We have developed an algorithm for automatically extracting those related search terms from the conditions that we are typing on your site and we have obtained a patent application for that specific algorithm."

PeC: How can your search solution integrate with a merchant's site?

Ryan:"The way that works, typically, is that clients will set up a subdomain. By way of instance, if you go into Ftd.com and search for"red roses," then the search results will be hosted on the subdomain Flowers.ftd.com. It's pretty simple for retailers to set this up. They simply have to make a subdomain, point it to our servers, and then we do the rest of it."

PeC: What are some recent developments in search?

Ryan:"Among the new things we have been working with lately is on the screen side of search, using AJAX to electricity search. This means when you do a search, and you did not do a refinement or you clicked on a related search or reorder results, the entire page does not reload. The query goes up into the server and the goods appear in the search results, and because we are not reloading the entire page, the encounter is far snappier for the consumer and it just seems much faster and smoother experience.

"Another smaller user interface trend that we are seeing on search is using mouse over pop-ups. This is when you've got a range of products displayed on a grid form. [Normally you've got to] enter the goods, examine the huge image on the item page, click back, go to another one, click on this... However, with these mouse over pop-ups, you simply hover over the image, a large image pops up and you can go into another one. Thus, it makes it effortless for you to inspect the specifics of the products without a great deal of clicks and new page loads.

"Another point I need to touch on is mobile websites. A whole lot of the mobile experience is based around search since you don't have a great deal of space to create all of the navigational links or the promotional links which you've on your home page. So, having a fantastic search is vitally important to get a mobile version of a shopping cart, and we have been working with some of our clients to make mobile versions of the search navigation."

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PeC: Why should a merchant not only use Google Custom Search?

Ryan:"What you do not get with Google Custom Search that you get with us is that our hunt learns from people using it and keeps getting better. So, the significance of our search is better.

"Also, we offer added service. We'll speak to you about your needs, how you would like your research presented, how you would like the significance to operate, and work with you to be certain the search functions for your company. With the Google Custom Search, it is completely self-service.

"Thirdly, we have got a means of using the website search data to automatically help search engine optimisation, as well as the Google one does not do that.

"Fourthly, since we conduct the search for 400 distinct retailers, and we are constantly learning from all them about ways to enhance the search, the agency keeps on getting better. We discuss those lessons we learned across all our customers."

PeC: Anything else on your mind for our readers?

Ryan:"We have recently produced a whitepaper that we call the Big Book of Website Search Tips, and it's available as a free download on the site. You don't need to be an SLI customer. I recommend that everyone download it and see if there are hints which you can apply to your organization."