6 Things That Improve Your B2B On-site Search

Picture this: a customer comes to your website, hoping to find bearings to repair a faulty machine in his factory. He enters his query in your search box, but he makes a mistake and ends up on a page with no results. What do you think he'll do next?

Most likely, he will leave your site and look for another supplier. This is how powerful on-site search is.

Research has shown that 80% of buyers abandon a brand’s site because of poor search.?

On the other hand, a good search function can boost your sales significantly. Just look at Amazon, where visitors who use their search feature are six times more likely to buy than those who don’t. And this is not only true for B2C sites, but also for B2B sites like yours.

So, how can you achieve this level of search functionality? Here are six tips that will help you improve your B2B on-site search and increase your sales:

1. Boost Your Search Results?

You can make your search results more relevant by using the Global Search Boost feature. This lets you rank your products based on different attributes, like SKU, size, color, brand, or material. For example, if your customers often search for products by color, you can rank color higher than SKU. This way, your customers can find what they want faster and easier.

2. Show What Others Like?

Your customers have similar tastes and preferences, and you can use this to your advantage. With the Customer Actions Boost feature in modern B2B ecommerce solutions, you can show products that are popular among other customers based on their actions.?

You can boost products in the search results by the following criteria:

• By the number of product views
• How often the product is placed on a shopping list
• How frequently the product is purchased.

This helps new customers discover products they might need and improves their buying experience. You can control these boosts from the backend and apply them to your whole site or specific websites.

3. Help Them Type Less?

Search Autocomplete is a great feature that saves your customers time and effort. It predicts what they are looking for as they type in the search bar. This feature is very common and expected by users. For example, if a customer is looking for a retractor, they can see related products after typing just a few letters. You can also customize how many items you want to show in the autocomplete box.

4. Fix Their Typos?

Sometimes, your customers don’t know the exact name of a product or make a spelling mistake. The Fuzzy Search feature helps them avoid getting no results by showing products that are close to what they typed. This prevents them from getting frustrated and leaving your site. You can set how tolerant you want the search to be and exclude search by SKU from the Fuzzy Search.

5. Use Different Words?

Your customers might use different words to search for the same product. For example, someone looking for a spray bottle might type “atomizer” or “aerosol spray.” Without synonyms, they might not find the product they want. Search synonyms help users find products easily, even if they don’t know the exact name that the manufacturer uses.?

6. Learn From Their Searches?

Search History is a feature that lets you collect the search terms your customers use. This gives you valuable insights into what they want and how they search.

The Search History Report shows you details like searched terms, autocomplete usage, language preferences, and user account information. You can use this information to create reports, improve your site search features––like synonyms and fuzzy search––and personalize your offers.?

Elevate Your B2B Experience with Advanced On-Site Search

Having a powerful and user-friendly search function is essential for any B2B ecommerce site. However, many B2B ecommerce platforms lack the features you need to optimize your on-site search.?

Pro tip: Whether you are building a new ecommerce site or updating your existing one, choose a solution that has advanced on-site search capabilities built-in—you’ll save on customizations.

See how OroCommerce improves the on-site search experience for B2B ecommerce sites with its out-of-the-box search features.