{"id":14892,"date":"2013-12-17T23:32:26","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T18:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vwo.com\/blog\/?p=14892"},"modified":"2026-03-30T14:11:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T08:41:38","slug":"refine-ecommerce-site-search-and-navigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vwo.com\/blog\/refine-ecommerce-site-search-and-navigation\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Ways to Refine eCommerce Site Search and Navigation for Quick Product Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If they can\u2019t find it, they can\u2019t buy it. It\u2019s as simple as that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one has the time to surf through your site for the entire day, hoping to find what they\u2019re looking for. If the process is not as seamless as walking into a restaurant and ordering a dish, they will leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how do you stop that? How can you reduce the time taken by your visitors to find the product they are looking for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Website navigation and internal site search can help you sort product findability problems. Do add usability basics into the mix, or bad usability might just nullify your efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download Free: Usability Testing Guide<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once you make it easy for visitors to find their desired products on your eCommerce site, your conversion lift<\/a> will be legendary. So let’s see what you can do about it:<\/p>\n\n\n

1. Replace the drop-down menu with an Explanatory Product Category Page<\/h3>\n\n\n

Frictionless Commerce used VWO testing<\/a> to run a test on their client’s website, Bodyecology.com. They replaced the drop-down menu on the site with an explanatory product category page, which increased revenue by 56.43%<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This especially makes sense as Bodyecology.com has complicated product categories like ‘Probiotic culture starters’. The product category page that replaced the menu contained a two-line brief of each category, which helped visitors understand where they can expect to find the products they are looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below you can see the control page<\/a> of the Body Ecology website with the drop-down menu and the product category page that replaced it:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Control<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Variation<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n

2. Dig into Your Site Search Data and Act on It<\/h3>\n\n\n

In a recent ConversionXL post<\/a> that listed favorite analytics data of conversion experts, John Ekman of Conversionista mentioned ‘checking conversions for visitors<\/a> who used site search’ as his favorite go-to report in Google Analytics (GA). Here’s what he said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“On an average, I would say that the conversion rate for visits with site search is usually TWICE AS HIGH as visits without site search.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Your report will look like this:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"GA
Image source: CXL<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Make sure your conversion goals are set in your GA. John recommends that you subtract “bounced visits” from this report to get accurate insights. They are the visitors who haven’t explored your site at all. So, including them in this analysis would mean inflating results for ‘visits with site search’ way higher than they are when compared with “visits without site search”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you have this data with you and if conversions for your site are indeed better with search functionality, the next thing you have to do is encourage eCommerce site search usage among your visitors. How can you do that? Let your search feature stand out on the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n