Advanced Search in Magento: Improve Your Store's Experience

Give your customers the best experience of your Magento store by investing in advanced search.

Jaques Cilliers - Writer for Fast Simon
By Jaques Cilliers
Michelle Meyer - Editor for Fast Simon
Edited by Michelle Meyer
Oli Kashti - Writer and Fact-Checker for Fast Simon
Fact-check by Oli Kashti

Updated February 26, 2024.

Businessman working on laptop

Advanced search is a powerful tool that can significantly improve the functionality and performance of your Magento Search store, leading to increased customer satisfaction, conversions, and sales.

Consider that 43% of your customers immediately zero in on the search bar to find information, but 21% of them can exit your site again from the search results—possibly because they didn't find what they're looking for and are searching for another store to buy from.

But with its range of features, advanced search can help your customers find what they're looking for quickly and conveniently, making it easier for them to complete purchases.

» Learn how to provide a tailored experience with advanced search

Advanced search in eCommerce refers to a sophisticated and feature-rich search system that gives your customers multiple ways to refine their search and increase their chances of getting the results they want.

This can include searching by product attributes, price range, brand, or category. Advanced search also often includes autocomplete and spelling features to make sure your customers still get their desired results even if they make mistakes in their search terms.

Give Your Customers the Best Magento Experience

Having advanced search in your Magento store can give you an advantage over your competitors, considering that 61% of eCommerce stores perform below expectations when it comes to search.

Here's how advanced search can improve your store's experience:

1. Language Recognition

It always comes down to semantics, right? You can give your customers a better shopping experience when you up your language game.

  • Support multiple languages When your customers search for products in their preferred language, it can enhance the relevancy and accuracy of their search results. Your customers search more intuitively and find the process more user-friendly, especially if they're not fluent in the default language of your store.
  • Account for language mistakes Your customers may make typos in the search bar or completely misspell a product name. Advanced search can take this into account and make sure that your customers still get the search results they want—instead of a "No Results" page.

The flexibility that you get from language recognition means that your customers can easily find what they need without sifting through irrelevant results. This can help increase customer satisfaction and, subsequently, sales.

Everten: Spelling of Search Terms

Everten sells various kitchenware. Their search results for "fry pan" and "frypan" are the same, so it doesn't matter if you spell it as two words or one.

Language recognition example from Everten


2. Multiple Types of Content

Magento allows you to create and manage various types of content, such as product descriptions, blog articles, pages, and more. You can also use Magento's built-in rich-text editor to enhance the formatting and presentation of your content.

Advanced search gives you an extra advantage by making sure your customers find all of your content quickly.

  • Cater to non-product searches Your search results won't be restricted to products only. Your customers can also view related blog posts, reviews, subscriptions, etc.
  • Use your internal search bar as a gateway Your search bar is central to your store and can be the first point of contact with your customers. By making it a gateway, your customers can easily access their desired information from this one point. They don't have to scroll aimlessly through information or click on several tabs.

Liebherr: Diverse Search Results

Liebherr is an international group that manufactures equipment and technology for various industries. Just by searching for "refrigeration", multiple search results from various places on the website appear. For example, products, company profiles, and magazines. A very useful filter on the left allows you to refine your search even more.

Liebherr example_Multiple types of content



3. Advanced Sorting

Advanced sorting means your customers can sort their search results according to their preferences instead of the default sorting option in your Magento store.

  • Support your customer's end goal Your customer is visiting your store with a purpose, for example, to buy a gift. Advanced sorting can help them achieve this faster. If they're on a budget, they can sort the results according to price. Similarly, if they don't know the person well, they can sort the results according to popularity.

Zachys: Refined Search Results Sorting

Zachys specializes in wine and liquor. After using the filters on the left, you can use the advanced sorting option on the right to organize your search results according to top rated, product name, high and low pricing, or relevance.

Zachys example_Advanced sorting



Do It the Fast Way

Expecting quick and accurate search results is part of your customers' online behavior. With advanced search features, like what we just discussed, you can easily provide this to them in your Magento store.

Creating an optimized site search experience can encourage your customers to convert more, which will also boost your average order value.

» Have a BigCommerce store instead? Find out how to optimize BigCommerce Search