Advanced: Search Modification Tips
This tutorial will show you how you can make slight modifications that can have a huge impact on how the search results are affected on your site.
Keywords
The first area we are going to cover is Keywords. Since the relevance of a search is dependent upon keywords that are associated with products, this is a very important area.
You will notice there are two fields for keywords located under the Search & Meta section when you edit a product. What is grayed out are the managed search keywords. These are the keywords that are provided by your vendor and cannot be edited.
The Search Keywords box shown in green is where you can enter your own custom keywords.
Please Note: Our solution will not search for a single character entry, so it excludes it from the search keywords.
In the example below, we searched for the term Step Ladder. The first image (1.) shows the search results. Next, we edited the highlighted image and added "step ladder" to the search keywords section. We conducted another search (2.) and you can see that the highlighted image jump up 3 places.
If we go back into the product and add another "step ladder" entry into the keywords, the product will jump into the first position when a search is conducted. This method of "jamming" in keywords is referred to as Keyword Stuffing. You can stuff as many keywords as you deem necessary.
By now it should be pretty apparent that keywords are a pretty big deal.
Search Rank Weight
Another cool tool that we have in place is the Search Rank Weight. This feature is used solely to influence the relevance of a keyword search that is conducted on your site.
The higher the search rank weight you assign to a product, the higher up it is returned in a keyword search result.
The slider tool shown below moves in increments of .005 and can be dragged from 0 to 1.
The rank weight can also be set up via spreadsheet using the column header rankweight and the accepted value can be up to 1000 or greater if need be. For products that you set to have a higher search rank weight than "1", the slider tool will adjust to reflect your changes.
In the example below, we search for the term "Task chair".
1.) Assuming we want to make the highlighted product shown below which is in the last position appear at the top of our search results.
2.) We give that product a search rank weight of 100 via spreadsheet.
3.) We conduct another search and the product is now the first item in our search results.
Global Rank
The global rank is primarily used to rank products within a given category.
In the example below;
1.) We navigate to the Task Chairs category, and want to move the last product (highlighted) to the top of the first page of that category.
2.) We give the product a Global Rank of 100.
3.) We return to the Task Chairs category and our preferred product is in the first position.
The global rank is also the deciding factor when a keyword search is conducted and all the products have an equal ranking; ie the higher the global rank number, the higher it appears in the search results all other things held constant.
In the example below, a keyword search of playstation is conducted.
1.) We want to put the highlighted product in the first place.
2.) We give the product a Global Rank of 100.
3.) Another search for playstation is conducted and voilà! our preferred product is in the first position.
Search Adjustment Configurations
One last tool remains in our arsenal of features that can help you optimize the search option on your site. The Search Adjustment Configurations will help you calibrate your search settings so that you can create a pleasurable shopping experience for your customers.
We have an article that talks about the effectiveness of this feature and we encourage you to learn more about it by Clicking Here.
In summary, these are all awesome tools to improve the effectiveness of your site's search engine. If you have custom products, this is a great way to get those items noticed on your site. It is also advisable not to go overboard with these tools as you may end up cluttering your site with redundant information.
Please Note: Be sure to thoroughly test out any adjustments that you make here to ensure that they work according to your liking