In the ecommerce realm, digital marketers are trying to build an effective online marketplace that can turn website visitors into loyal customers. According to a new whitepaper, “Power Up Your ROI and Conversions with Search,” a well-tuned search engine is one of the most effective ecommerce tools a website can feature.

Nearly 70% of online visitors to an ecommerce site prefer to use a search tool to find what they are looking for (compared to standard site navigation methods). Well-performing search functions maximize the power of a search tool by providing data on website visitors’ behavior.

The whitepaper showcases how these tools automatically report top keywords that website visitors are inputting into the search engine before it determines which keywords help the visitors find what they need. While observing this data, a digital marketing team can optimize the search engine to include the keywords that visitors are using to find the specific products they want.

Ecommerce sites that utilize these intuitive search tools have triple the conversion rate compared to visitors who browsed by navigation alone, according to the whitepaper. When a visitor’s search results are personalized to show what is most attractive to them, they know they can return in the future to seek out the products they are looking for, converting them from a visitor into a loyal customer.

The whitepaper also outlines how keyword searches yield poor results and reveals how many pages of search results it often takes for a visitor to scroll through before they have found their desired product. This data can provide helpful insight into how the search engine needs to be adjusted in order to help sellers recognize opportunities to minimize or eliminate lost sales.

Download and read the whitepaper here.