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Make the Most of Your BigCommerce Site Search

BigCommerce is always adjusting how your store’s search box works, and while that may be outside your control, you do have the ability to make your search results more effective.

Every product has a field for Search Keywords which hooks into your website’s search box. Many store owners misunderstand this field and think it’s related to SEO (search engine optimization) and helping products appear in Google or Bing search results. In reality, this field allows you to control when to include products in your website’s search results.

Search keywords have two great uses. The first is for synonyms. For example, if you sell clothing, your products may come in multiple colors. If those colors have specific names like “teal”, “aquamarine” or “navy”, you can enter the generic color “blue” in the search keywords field to ensure those items come up when a shopper searches for “blue shirts”. This is also useful for products that can be referred to by multiple names – you never know which one a shopper is going to use in the search box.

The other cool use for Search Keywords is creating temporary or seasonal collections. Rather than creating a whole category, you can use a unique search term to group products that can be linked to from a banner or social media. For example, you may want to highlight products for summer travel. Add the words “summer travel” in the Search Keywords field for the appropriate products and then do a search on your website for the same phrase, making sure to put it in quotes. Copy the URL of the search results page and you can use it for a carousel banner on the homepage, on Facebook or in an email newsletter. If you don’t like the look of the long URL, use Bit.ly to create a short link that masks the full URL.

To add Search Keywords, edit a product and then click on the Other Details tab. You’ll find the field in the Other Details section. This field is also available in the product export and import file, so you can easily make bulk updates when you need to add search keywords to many products at once.

This post is an excerpt from my new book, 60 Killer BigCommerce Tips & Tricks for Managing Your Store Like a Pro, now available in paperback and Kindle format from Amazon.com.