A new partnership between site navigation company SearchSpring and Magento is designed to provide improved integration between ecommerce and website navigation technology. SearchSpring, which has worked with Magento since version 1.0, celebrated the deal by launching an official extension for the ecommerce platform.
The new feature automatically synchronizes data between SearchSpring's website search platform and Magento, and the company has already worked closely several other Magento partners, such as web design and marketing company Groove Commerce.
"Groove Commerce is excited to see another great company become an industry partner," said Mack McGee, vice president of sales marketing at Groove Commerce. "We have enjoyed the great functionality, strong integration, and impressive ROI that SearchSpring has provided our Magento clients. We look forward to more Magento customers seeing what a great value and solution SearchSpring provides now as a Magento Bronze Partner."
How to best utilize site search
Website search improves user experience by making it easy to find relevant information, but allowing the feature is also valuable to the business. Writing for Econsultancy, Graham Charlton recently highlighted several ways businesses can use site search to improve their websites.
One of the most useful pieces of information is how often visitors search for particular terms or phrases. Charlton said that identifying the most often searched for terms allows the business to design a more intelligent search engine optimization strategy, but it also allows companies to better prioritize the information on their website. For example, if visitors are searching for information regarding a specific product or service, it may be because they're having trouble finding it through the natural layout of the website.
Another point of frustration, according to Charlton, is when users search for a term and the site search feature generates a poor result. This means that the user's search either yielded no results or brought back so many pages that it's difficult to find relevant ones. Organizations can improve search experiences by providing filtering tools, so that users can better identify the type of information they're looking for.
A high bounce rate may also indicate user frustrations over performance. Running an ecommerce solution without an infrastructure tuned to support it can reduce the value of the features it provides. Optimized Magento hosting can reduce the risk of poor performance by providing the backbone for smoothly running the platform.
