Optimize with Synonyms to Improve Search Experience
When is the last time you reviewed your site search data? Have you taken the time to examine what keywords are being searched, but providing no results for your users? We have discussed the importance before of ensuring your website visitors are not hitting dead ends so reviewing this data on a scheduled basis is an easy way to improve your website engagement and conversion rates. One easy strategy to address keywords that are providing no results is to use synonyms functionality, after all your search can only be as good as the data available. Using synonyms allows you to bypass several ways that the search algorithm may not be able to keep up with language or address unique business requirements. Here are ways you can maximize your search tool with the use of synonyms.
Acronyms & Brand Names
We commonly use acronyms and brand names in searches. These variations unless included within your product data can deliver no results even if you have a related product. An example can be users searching for “Kleenex” when really they just need “tissue”. Perhaps you have a content based search and your website visitor is trying to find your FAQ page, but you named that page “Frequently Asked Questions”. You don’t want to necessarily change the name to include both variations so instead synonyms can provide the solution.
Misspellings in Search Terms
We all do it, misspell common terms when we are typing fast and even more commonly when we are using a mobile device. It’s autocorrects fault right? Traditionally, there are terms we misspell more commonly than others, check out this list as some may surprise you and your site may be victim of some of these top variations. Again, synonyms can be the solution as you definitely don’t want to change your content to include misspellings.
Special Character Searches
It isn’t uncommon for search algorithms to struggle with special characters such as hyphens, commas, apostrophes, periods, quotations, etc. However, it isn’t uncommon to have these special characters within brand names. A few that come to mind that have hyphens either for brand names or product names are i-pad, Coca-Cola, Kit-Kat and more. Even regular product categories or items can have these special characters such as “t-shirt”. Creating synonyms for variations without the special characters can fix search results if your ecommerce store has this issue.
Multilingual Searches
Obviously, if you are seeing a high level of users visit your website where their native language doesn’t match the language used on your website you should be looking into a full multilingual solution (Google Analytics data can help identify those opportunities), but it is common to see a few keywords within your search term report from another language. If you see those terms and if those terms relate to products or categories within your website synonyms can be a stop gap to address that user base.
Slang Terms
Slang terms are always creeping into mainstream dialog. It becomes so common in our language we don’t always think on how those terms can alter how users are searching for certain products. Slang terms often have a counterpart with an unrelated meaning which search technology usually cannot keep up with so keep an eye on such terms to address manually with synonyms logic.
Traditional Synonyms
Then there are of course the more common examples where synonyms may be needed. Think of the term “jacket” or did you mean “coat”. What about “blazer” or perhaps you meant “sweater”.
It is important to take a step back and examine the products or content you serve on your site to understand where simple synonyms could greatly improve your search experience. Start with the lowest hanging fruit with terms that are not delivering results, but also make sure your top terms are also delivering the results you expect. Learn about further search tunning in our upcoming blog series.
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