Increase visibility, engagement, and conversions

Today’s customers want quick answers. They expect to find what they need fast, without wasting time. Sitecore Search provides an AI-powered search engine that easily fits into any modern digital experience.

Think about an Australian university’s website during enrolment season. Thousands of students are looking for course information, application deadlines, and scholarship details, all at once. Students must dig through menus and PDFs to find what they need. With a powerful, configured search experience in place, they simply type “Apply for engineering scholarship” and instantly see results tailored to them, the correct application form, eligibility criteria, and even related FAQs. The AI understands intent, not just keywords, so “engineering funding” or “financial aid for engineers” leads to the same relevant results.

The result? Fewer support calls, faster applications, and a much smoother student experience.

Sitecore Search is out-of-the-box is effective from the start, but these 12 tips can help you increase visibility, engagement, and conversions even more.

1. Think “Composable First,” Not “Monolithic Search”
   Traditional search was usually an afterthought. Composable search takes a different approach. Sitecore Search fits smoothly into your digital platform, supports different front ends, shares data, and can grow independently.

   Tip: Treat search as a tool you can use everywhere. Set it up once, then use it across your website, intranet, product catalogue, or support system. This saves time and keeps things consistent.

2. Start with Search Intent, Not Keywords
   Your visitors reveal what they want through their intent, not just keywords. Sitecore Search’s AI understands natural language and context. For the best results, teach it to recognise common intents, such as renewing membership, booking a consultation, or finding the nearest branch.

   Tip: Identify your top 10 visitor intents and build tailored search experiences for each, such as filters, quick answers, or featured results. This is a quick way to improve click-through rates and customer satisfaction.

3. Use Content Tagging to Fuel Discovery
   If your content isn’t tagged properly, your search results won’t work as well as they could. Sitecore Search performs best with strong metadata, such as titles, topics, personas, and custom fields like location or service type.
   For example, consider translating tags into actual phrases customers might use in search boxes. Instead of tagging with generic terms like ‘scholarship eligibility,’ use tags that align with user language, such as ‘How to qualify for a scholarship’ or ‘Requirements for scholarship eligibility.’ This kind of user-focused tagging can significantly improve search efficiency and user satisfaction.

   Tip: Create a simple tagging system that aligns with your customers’ way of thinking, like “I need,” “I want,” or “I’m learning.” Add these tags to blogs, FAQs, and landing pages to help people find content faster.

4. Design the Search UI Like It’s Your Hero Feature
   Search should be more than a small box with a magnifying glass. Customers use results, filters, and suggestions, and they can get frustrated if it’s not easy to use.

   Tip: Use your search results page to help drive conversions. Add visual cards, highlight images, clearly show categories, and include prompts like “Did you mean” or “Popular searches.” A well-designed page can lower bounce rates by 30 to 40 percent.

5. Use Autocomplete as Your Secret Conversion Funnel
   Autocomplete can help boost sales. By managing dropdown suggestions, you can guide users to valuable, relevant content or products.

   Tip: Add curated suggestions (e.g., “Book a demo,” “Pricing plans,” “Find your local branch”) alongside AI-generated ones. This helps steer users before they even hit “Enter.”

6. Leverage Boosting Rules for Strategic Content
   With Sitecore Search, you can boost and prioritize certain pages or topics in the results.

   Tip: During campaigns, boost pages tied to offers, seasonal events, or new product launches. For example, if you’re a university, boost “Apply Now” pages during enrolment season. Small tweaks like this can lift conversions by double digits.

7. Use Analytics to Tune Relevance
   Sitecore Search comes with analytics that track top searches, no-results queries, click-through rates, and how long users stay on a page.

   Tip: Check your analytics weekly and treat them as customer feedback. They show you what users are really looking for.

8. Use “No-Results” Pages as Conversion Opportunities
   A ‘no results found’ page is an opportunity to market. Instead of leaving users at a dead end, give them helpful options.

   Tip: Add “Related topics,” “Contact us,” or “Browse categories” to your no-results page. You can even include a chatbot or a “Did you mean” suggestion. This small tweak often recovers 20–25% of abandoned searches.

9. Keep Your Index Fresh and Light
   Your search results depend on a clean index. Over time, outdated or duplicate content can fill up your results and make them less useful.

   Tip: Set up regular crawls and leave out low-value pages, such as privacy policies or old news. Keep your index focused on what matters. This helps your search work faster and rank results more accurately.

10. Connect Search to Conversion Tracking
    If you set up Sitecore Search correctly, you can see which searches drive conversions, such as form submissions, downloads, purchases, or bookings.

    Tip: Tag key conversion events in Sitecore analytics or GA4 and correlate them to search terms. You’ll quickly see which topics drive revenue, and which don’t

11. Bring AI Recommendations into Search
    Sitecore Search helps people discover content. You can add AI-powered recommendations to show related or trending items.

    Tip: Add “People also viewed” or “Recommended for you” sections under search results. It keeps users engaged longer and multiplies their time on site, a proven SEO and UX win.

12. Use Search to Bridge the Gap Between Marketing and IT
    Search is one of the few places where marketers and developers work closely together. It brings together storytelling, user experience, data, and technical design.

    Tip: Create a shared dashboard where marketing teams can review analytics and IT teams can adjust indexing rules. Collaboration leads to faster iteration and higher relevance scores, the essence of composable teamwork.

Why This Matters

In a flexible digital system, every part needs to work well. Sitecore Search is more than a search bar. It helps boost conversions, gives customer insights, and adds personalisation—all in one tool.

The organisations that win are the ones that:

• Treat search as a continuous optimisation channel.
• Combine data and design thinking.
• Align marketing and IT around measurable goals.

When used well, Sitecore Search can boost engagement by up to 40 percent, lower content abandonment, and increase conversions, all without extra campaign spending.

Final Thought: Make Search Your Superpower

The future of digital experience is flexible, connected, and customer focused. Every time someone uses your search bar, they show you what they want. Sitecore Search helps you listen, understand, and respond to those needs.

• Start small by improving your tagging, adjusting your analytics, and designing with user intent in mind.
• Then, as you grow, focus on personalisation, integration, and automation.

Are you ready to get more out of Sitecore Search for your organisation?

If your digital experience feels disconnected or your customers struggle to find what they need, it may be time to rethink your approach. Contact our team. We have helped organisations in education, government, and financial services modernise their search and achieve real results.