For any given website, a search box is the most used element. Users depend on it to search for information on the site. When you have a big website with a lot of pages, users rely on the search box to find things they are looking for.
A search bar provides a better user experience and also promotes user interaction with the website.
If you are building a new website, you should give equal importance to the search bar of your site. You need to learn how to make a search bar that searches your site.
Important Things About Building A Search Bar
A search box is can be created with different methods. No matter, what method you are using, there are few things to be kept in mind.
- Make the search box prominent
The search bar of your website should be prominent. In other words, users should be able to find it easily. The discoverability of the search box is very crucial for booking or eCommerce sites. These are the type of sites where users rely heavily on search to navigate the different pages of the website.
Whether you have an eCommerce website or a business one, you should never hide the search box behind a search icon or in a drop-down menu. This makes it difficult for users to find it.
- Keep your search box simple
A search box should be simple and easy to use. There is no need to go overboard with the search box. When it comes to building a search bar, users’ convenience matters the most. This is why you should design a simple search bar and also provide users with search filters.
Offering an advanced search mechanism helps promote user interaction. However, if users find it difficult to use, they will simply move to some other site without wasting their time. For creating a search box, the best option Expertrec.
- Place your search box where users expect to find it
Users scan websites in an F pattern. To make the search bar easily discoverable, you need to place it within this pattern. This is where users will be expecting to find the search bar.
The ideal placement of a search box is at the top right of the website. Most websites have their search bars placed at the top of the page. This allows users to find it easily.
- Put search bar on every page
Another crucial thing is to put the search bar on every page. Users should always be able to find the search bar at the top of the website, regardless of the page they are on.
Search bars come in handy in error pages where users hit a dead end. No matter, how many pages you have on your website, all of them should show the search bar.
- Consider putting autocomplete
Nobody has excess time to type in full sentences when they are looking for something on your website. So, when you are designing a search bar on your website, you do need to integrate autocomplete in the same. It should help the users get better answers to their requirements.
But, even with the inclusion of the autocomplete feature, you need to ensure that you show the most relevant suggestions instead of suggesting everything. That can easily overwhelm the users. A maximum of 10 suggestions is considered ideal.
- Hide the advanced options
If you are planning on including advanced options, we’d suggest that you don’t. Unless your website caters to the extremely tech-savvy people, you need to invest your time on something else instead of focusing on the advanced options.
In case you do want to add advanced options, try and include them in a hidden menu that the users might access if they want to. Don’t include it smack dab into the centre of the search console.
- Make the search bar mobile friendly
With millions of people accessing websites from their smartphones, it isn’t surprising that the maximum of the traffic channels in from mobile devices. So, if you are creating a search box for your website, make sure that you make it mobile-friendly. This is extremely important and makes all the difference.
Make the search buttons large and easy to view on mobile. Also, try and make the search bar space-friendly since the mobile view of the website is very concise. Make it noticeable but not enough that it takes up all the space on the website.
A search box is one of the most important elements of a website. It should be designed and placed keeping the convenience of users in mind.
