10 Best Faceted Search Practices to Increase Sales for eCommerce Site

Customer experience is critical to eCommerce success, and a faceted search can help you with that, especially if you have a high number of products. A faceted search is an essential tool for online buyers and for providing an exceptional user experience. When properly integrated, they ensure that customers can easily navigate product results.

In this blog post, we’ll go through facets search best practices and discuss why you should utilize them to build an intuitive and practical user experience and boost your sales.

What is Faceted Search?

Faceted search, also known as facets filtering or faceted navigation, is a key tool in online stores that helps visitors discover what they’re looking for by refining their search results using product attribute filters. 

Filters allow for one-dimensional narrowing of results, such as by brand or color. Faceted search, on the other hand, offers numerous filters at the same time, allowing users to apply different product features, in this case, brand and color, at the same time. Faceted search is very useful for huge assortments with several product variations.

Why Should You Use Faceted Search for Your Online Shop?

There are numerous reasons why you should implement faceted search on your website. The most important ones are mentioned below:

• Faceted search helps visitors narrow their search results by making it easier for them to locate what they’re looking for, which can enhance website engagement.
• Users can filter their results by brand name or product type attributes. As a result, they can quickly find what they need, rather than scrolling through a slew of useless results that don’t quite match their search query.
• It is also useful for those who are unsure of what they are looking for. Visitors can find what they are looking for fast if they know a general category.
• Faceted search enhances the user experience by assisting visitors in finding more relevant products or services in less time.
• You can present a large choice of items and services with their information using faceted search.

10+ Best Faceted Search Practices to Increase Ecommerce Sales

We’ve already discussed what faceted search is, how it varies from standard filters, and how it can assist eCommerce stores with complex product catalogs in increasing revenues. However, simply having facets is insufficient to create magic. It all depends on how you build it and how you use it. A well-designed faceted search may help consumers rapidly discover the exact information they need, and it can help you generate more sales by displaying relevant options to your visitors.

We’ve compiled a list of 10 best practices to assist your online store to earn more sales.

Well prepare your data

Data is usually the most important factor in eCommerce search. Working with your product data is a good place to start when building aspects. Gather as much information as you can on the products. Keep in mind that you must clean and optimize it in order to provide the best facets. It’s critical that the attributes you use to build filters make sense. You wouldn’t want the outcomes to be untidy.

The proper logging of the data is another crucial step. You must decide how the filters will be shown in order to understand where the data should be logged (the UI side of your facets search). Having general product descriptions is insufficient. To make conditions and scripts to generate things like size charts, brands, names, etc. simpler, you should log every characteristic into a matching field. The main takeaway from this is that data is what aspects depend on the most.

Find the right balance of facet options

On your product pages, use the appropriate number of facets. The best practice is to utilize a reasonable number of aspects to allow users to easily locate what they’re looking for, while not employing so many that they become overwhelmed with too many possibilities.

You don’t want to include too many or too few facets. It may be superfluous to include criteria that no one looks for. Include the most commonly searched terms and balance your alternatives.

It depends on the product you’re selling, so examine your users’ behavior before making a decision. Another method is to conduct competitor research because you can examine which options they provide on their page to get an idea of what you can include.

Make faceted search relevant

Product-specific facets are preferred. If you add a pants size filter to those Adidas sneakers your user has been daydreaming about for the past month, you’re probably not going to help your users. Step into your customers’ shoes is the golden guideline.

What is included in faceted search results should also be carefully scrutinized. If the search engine for your website merely uses simple ranking, it could push the most relevant results to the front pages while hiding the irrelevant ones on subsequent pages. When users use sorting options like price, this becomes a problem. This is the reason your faceted search results strategy should include both ranking and relevancy.

When looking for a product, try to consider your users and what can be valuable to them. A smart place to start is with your website’s search metrics. You can get a sense of what your users are looking for and how they engage with particular goods by looking at the data. Consider all the relevant possibilities because relevance is the most important factor. Just be careful not to overwhelm them with too many of them because you don’t want to divert their attention away from the product.

Allow customers to select multiple options

Allowing customers to select multiple options inside a single facet is typically a good idea so they may view a wide variety of products. Allowing customers to select from a variety of brand options, for instance, can help them narrow down their options and make a decision based on price and capacity. Your users’ decision-making will be aided by these combinations of facets.

Users can construct a customized search based on their own criteria when you give them the option to make numerous selections. This considerably enhances their browsing experience by allowing them to locate the most pertinent things on offer and select the one that best suits their needs.

Avoid the facets that return NO RESULTS

When users encounter the no results found page, they become frustrated. It is a highly unpleasant experience for a user to select many alternatives just to learn that the outcomes do not match. While there are numerous strategies to improve your ‘no results’ page, one effective method is to display only available options. Through the filters, inform them that the products they are looking for are not currently available.

For example, if a user selects ‘blue’ as their shirt color, only available sizes are displayed. The rest of the sizes that aren’t available in blue are grayed off, so users can’t pick them. Customers will be less likely to come to the no-results page as a result of this.

Vertically and logically place the facets

Facets should ideally be stored vertically and on the left side. Although horizontal navigation offers a better view of the possibilities, it is only practical when there aren’t an excessive amount of products and their attributes. Presenting a lot of features horizontally could make your website appear cluttered. The aspects would vanish as users scroll down, which would negatively affect the user experience. To use it, users must scroll up and down.

Vertical layouts are the most effective when there are too many things, hence many eCommerce operators use them. Vertical arrangements work efficiently when there are too many things, which is why many eCommerce operators use them the most. People read from left to right naturally, therefore placing facets on the left side will draw their attention before they ever notice the products. Aspects are easily accessible to customers, making it easier for them to find products and finish their purchases more quickly.

You should sort the options by popularity, highly recommended, or unit count. While user reviews are typically arranged in descending order, with 1 star at the bottom and 5 stars at the top, the price and size facets are typically arranged in ascending order.

Use words that are familiar to your target audiences.

Many online shops make the mistake of giving the names of the filters they came up with on their own. Your customers might not appreciate your originality if you chose a distinctive name to identify your facets. If they are familiar with your original terminology, they can locate products using a straightforward search. Therefore, instead of showcasing your creative side, always try to assist your potential clients in finding what they are looking for.

Use terms and language that is most known to and understood by your target audience. Look at the search terms that your consumers are using. To learn more about the language they employ, you may also read their reviews or consult your sales staff and watch sales meeting recordings. By doing this, you’ll be able to label filters in the most thorough manner possible, in addition to creating helpful filters.

Immediately refine the results

When users apply filters, it’s important to consider how quickly the results are refined. The results should be immediately improved when clients keep making their preferred selections. Most visitors anticipate the site to load in less than two seconds. According to research, About 47% of visitors will leave a website if it takes longer than two seconds to load, and conversion rates fall by 6.7% for every additional second of delay and are highest when the refresh rate is 2 seconds.

Integrating AJAX technology is the most effective technique to boost your website’s refresh rate. When the consumer selects a value, the entire page is not reloaded, but only the selected data is fetched, greatly reducing processing time. If you are running a WooCommerce store, you can use Woostify theme to implement AJAX technology in your faceted search. Woostify is a WooCommerce theme focusing on boosting sales and offering AJAX product search that helps you enhance the shopping experience in your store.

Display numbers near facets

Facets are designed to aid users, so you don’t want to confuse them. Showing how much product each filter has, both selected and unselected, gives the user a better idea of what to expect from the product catalog.

This is a good approach to let users know how well their search went and whether it met their expectations, or whether they need to narrow down the results further. This gives users a more enjoyable buying experience because they don’t have to return, resulting in more conversions.

Make faceted search friendly on mobile devices

Faceted navigation, like other aspects of your website, should be designed to be mobile-friendly. Using the same design as on the desktop may not work on mobile, so keep their differences in mind while adding your facets.

Because you may refresh the page immediately on the desktop, results can appear soon. When you choose a new filter, the results will reload your website without affecting your visitors’ experience.

Try using image facets

It can be difficult to put into words what you are seeking for. Perhaps your user noticed a very nice spherical lamp at a friend’s apartment but doesn’t know what word filters to apply to find it. When image recognition powered by AI can assist consumers in selecting appropriate visual filters, words simply cannot. Using visual filters is very new in eCommerce, and it may not be for everyone, but it is certainly worth considering when developing features.

Faceted Search: Frequently Asked Questions

What is a multifaceted search?

A multifaceted search is one that allows people to look for information using numerous criteria. Furthermore, it is a type of search that allows you to find material that is organized differently.

If you’re looking for a new shoe, for example, you may use the multidimensional search to narrow down your options based on the type of shoe (boots, high heels, sneakers, etc.), the color of the shoe, and the material used to make it.

By picking alternatives from each of these possibilities, you may simply do a multidimensional search.

What are the most popular facets?

The elements you include on your website will vary depending on the items or services you sell. You can include the most frequently sought alternatives in your faceted navigation by analyzing them.

Some of the most popular facets are listed below:

• Product ratings and reviews
• Brands
• Size or age
• Color and design
• Pricing details or a price range

What Is the distinction between a filter and a facet?

Facets and filters are two methods for narrowing down a search. These two can be similar in certain ways because they both assist individuals in finding what they are looking for in a specific way. Facets are a method of categorizing data into logical groups. Multiple facets can be used to find the relevant ones.

Instead, filters can be more broad, and numerous options may not be used. A filter can be selected before the search query, but it will not be modified. Facets provide additional possibilities, while filters provide primary categories of specialized information.

Final Words,

Facets are an excellent approach to improving your site’s overall user experience and, as a result, raising your revenue. They may not be suitable for all stores, and they require significant money and time to build properly. Thus, it is critical to thoroughly understand and prepare these principles in order to minimize problems when implementing faceted navigation on your online store.

If you have any ideas or recommendations on implementing faceted navigation for eCommerce sites, please share them with us by leaving a comment below.