The Ultimate Guide to

Site Search User

Experience
A showcase of real-world site search best practices
from companies like Milwaukee Tool, Fasken, and
CMSWire, featuring self-learning, AI-powered search,
personalization and recommendations.

coveo.com
INTRODUCTION

The benefits of AI-

powered site search
Today, website visitors expect to find what they’re looking for fast, easily
consume content, and discover helpful recommendations.

Yet many companies still implement site search merely as a helpful

navigation aid, despite the fact that nearly half of all site visitors go
immediately to the search box, and searchers are 2-3 times more likely to
convert (Forrester).

In the era of self-service and personalization, search has evolved to the

most important function on many websites, delivering experiences that
drive business value in the form of higher conversion rates, customer
satisfaction, and revenue.

Read on to learn how companies have harnessed Coveo’s AI-powered site

search to deliver the relevant, personalized experiences your visitors now
expect, and the results your business requires.
© 2019 Coveo Solutions Inc - Proprietary and Confidential WWW.COVEO.COM
BEST PRACTICE #1

Showcase search
front & center
Principal Financial Group did a great job making their
search box stand out among all of the other components
of their webpage. When a visitor scrolls down, the search
box remains part of the top bar navigation and provides
easy access to search at all times.

Maintain your visitors’ attention on content-heavy web

pages by making search as prominent and as
eye-catching as possible.

Respecting the time that your visitors spend on your

digital properties brings a variety of benefits, including,
but not limited to, increased conversions on your
products and offers.

© 2019 Coveo Solutions Inc - Proprietary and Confidential WWW.COVEO.COM

BEST PRACTICE #2

Include search in your

overall UX design
User experience design is critical. Fasken leveraged
Coveo’s customizable user interface to create a seamless
search experience that became the cornerstone of its
site’s navigation.

A responsive page with agile search is fundamental in

helping your visitors navigate your web pages faster,
improving the findability of your content and increasing
the time spent on site.

A consistent design will make your search easier to find

and easier to use, making it a win-win for you and your
customers.

© 2019 Coveo Solutions Inc - Proprietary and Confidential WWW.COVEO.COM

BEST PRACTICE #3

Understand intent with

smart query suggestions
Milwaukee Tool knows that power tools are complicated —
there are simply too many bits and pieces to remember.
That’s why they let Artificial Intelligence do all of the heavy
lifting when it came to building out their search-query
recommendations.

With Coveo’s machine learning capabilities, Milwaukee Tool

can understand intent by using customer data to auto-
complete search queries for each customer based on what
other customers like them have found helpful in the past.

These AI-powered query suggestions save your

customers time, avoid frustration and ensure that they
are getting the most relevant results possible, creating a
contextual and memorable experience.

© 2019 Coveo Solutions Inc - Proprietary and Confidential WWW.COVEO.COM

BEST PRACTICE #4

Present dynamic &

consumable search
results
Formica’s results page refreshes automatically as different
filters are activated or disabled. Instead of refreshing the
entire web page, Formica’s results is the only part of the
page that reloads, decreasing the load on the server and
on their customer’s patience.

Giving your users the option to filter and personalize their

results without suffering a page refresh is a great way to
boost engagement and help your customers to find what
they’re looking for.

© 2019 Coveo Solutions Inc - Proprietary and Confidential WWW.COVEO.COM

BEST PRACTICE #5

Empower visitor to
filter their own results
People like having options, but too many options can be
overwhelming. When enhancing their search experience,
CMSWire empowered their customers to limit the
number of results they returned through filters and
facets. This ensures their customers get the most
relevant content, the moment it’s needed, rather than
having to sift through pages of search results.

Dynamic facets are auto-applied by Coveo to improve

search options according to the visitor’s location, their
persona, and their previous searches for a truly
personalized experience.

© 2019 Coveo Solutions Inc - Proprietary and Confidential WWW.COVEO.COM

BEST PRACTICE #6

Optimize for
mobile screens
Mobile browsing is now dominant. By not adapting your search
experience to accommodate mobile screens you completely miss the
opportunity to engage your visitors on the devices they choose.

Despite a phone’s small amount of visual real estate, Fasken’s mobile

experience maintains a consistent look and feel, while also
accommodating the visitor’s even higher expectations due to the
smaller space and desire for quicker, more accurate results.

A subtle change is the filter menu, which on mobile is displayed in the

drop-down menu in order to not obstruct the view. The search results
are automatically updated with AI-powered relevance, showing the
most popular and pertinent results front and center.

© 2019 Coveo Solutions Inc - Proprietary and Confidential WWW.COVEO.COM

BEST PRACTICE #7

Make search
human friendly
AI-powered search understands human behavior and
intent so you can aid your visitor even when they make a
typo, or aren’t completely sure what they’re looking for.

We’ve all had this moment: a friend recommends a dish

with such a complicated name that you have no clue how
to spell it when you’re searching for a recipe. That’s the
moment when you need help using the information you
have to guide you to the right result.

Nintex has successfully implemented a query suggestion

engine that recommends alternate spelling for common
misspellings, speeding up the process of finding content
and ultimately, conversions.

© 2019 Coveo Solutions Inc - Proprietary and Confidential WWW.COVEO.COM

BEST PRACTICE #8

Anticipate needs with

personalized
recommendations
When it comes to search, the most powerful thing you can
do is anticipate your visitor’s needs before they even know.
In other words, they can’t search for something they don’t
know exists, and could very well never find a solution.
You can help by analyzing usage data to determine what
their needs are and offer all the ways you can help.

Informatica did just this with their knowledge base, which

provides dynamic article recommendations based on
previous site searches and other relevant search terms.
With Coveo, they leveraged machine learning to help
predict these recommendations in order to personalize
content based on what your customers need next.

© 2019 Coveo Solutions Inc - Proprietary and Confidential WWW.COVEO.COM

Better site
search today
Re-thinking your site search can seem like a daunting
undertaking. Whether you are building a brand new website,
doubling down on your content investment, or need to
exponentially scale personalization, AI-powered search can
have an immediate impact.

Using machine learning, you have the ability to automate

routine tasks, better understand your audience, and deliver
personalization at scale.

Contact a Coveo representative or visit www.coveo.com

to learn more.

© 2019 Coveo Solutions Inc - Proprietary and Confidential WWW.COVEO.COM