When a website visitor is unable to find what they are looking for on your site, they will leave. This applies to online stores, blogs, services, and companies as well. If many of your visitors are unable to find what they were searching for on your website, the chances of you losing leads, sales, and establishing trust from those website visitors also increase significantly.

Unfortunately, small businesses usually do not recognize problems with the search functions of their site until they see substantial numbers of website visitors leaving important pages on their site. Fortunately, because of the advancements in site search technology, your small business can take advantage of contemporary site searching tools as a solution to these issues, including ExpertRec, AddSearch, and Swiftype.

Choosing the best site search solution for your small business depends on how much budget you have available, your level of technical expertise, and your anticipated level of growth. Now let’s explore the options listed above.

Why Site Search Matters More Than Most Small Businesses Think

Picture this: a visitor arrives at your website, looking for a specific item (i.e., product, service, blog post, or pricing page). If they cannot locate that item within 2 seconds, they generally will leave and find a competitor’s site instead.

Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that visitors who use search are far more likely to convert than a visitor who solely browses the menu of your website. The reason for this is straightforward; they know what they want, and the search tool helps them to find it quicker than browsing the menu.

Therefore, selecting the best search solution can impact revenue directly.

ExpertRec: Built for Businesses That Want Better Search without Complexity

For many small businesses, there isn’t always someone available to keep their websites running smoothly, so they typically need something that will work rapidly and easily with minimal setup time. That’s exactly what ExpertRec was built for.

With ExpertRec, website owners have access to cutting-edge AI-driven search functionality without having to deal with complicated setup/configuration processes. Immediately upon implementing ExpertRec, a company will see its website users’ search experience improved through displaying relevant search results, correcting any misspellings, providing auto-complete functionality, and helping users find content on their websites much faster.

ExpertRec goes beyond traditional e-commerce websites with its loss filters, faceted navigational aid, merchandising abilities, and personalized, unique shopping experiences. All these capabilities lead to helping online buyers locate and purchase products quickly and ultimately lead to more sales for the business implementing these features.

One major benefit of using ExpertRec is that it allows small businesses access to powerful searches similar to large enterprise companies, yet at much lower pricing levels!

AddSearch: Good Search Features with Growing Costs

Many companies utilize AddSearch because it enhances the quality of their site searches.

AddSearch provides several great search capabilities, including autocomplete capability, detailed search analytics, and many custom options. It works well on sites where there is a great deal of content and is easily added to a number of different web platforms.

As both websites and the number of visitors to those websites grow, however, pricing may start to become an issue for many smaller businesses. To add or alter some of the more advanced customization functionality of AddSearch might also require a greater commitment of technical expertise than for other, simpler analysis solutions.

For many businesses that require average levels of search, AddSearch can be a great option; however, if you are a cost-conscious business owner, it is a good idea to evaluate the features, capabilities, and price of AddSearch against other options.

Swiftype: Powerful but Often Better for Larger Teams

As part of the broader Elastic family, Swiftype has a great deal of advanced search and relevance tuning options available.

The Platform itself is quite sophisticated and provides a large number of options to control the search experience of your users. However, it may be somewhat challenging to learn how to implement and continue to optimize over time — particularly for those small businesses without technical resources.

If a company has a dedicated team of developers, Swiftype will likely be an excellent platform to use. For most owner/operated small businesses, however, simplicity and speed to deploy remain high priorities.

Quick Quiz: Is Your Current Site Search Hurting Your Business?

AI-powered search built for growing businesses

Help Visitors Find What They Need Faster with ExpertRec

ExpertRec gives small businesses powerful AI search, autocomplete, typo correction, product discovery, advanced filtering, and personalized search experiences without the complexity or cost of enterprise search platforms.

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Boost conversions • Reduce bounce rates • No coding required

What Makes ExpertRec Different for Small Businesses?

Finding an affordable solution that balances all three criteria (performance, ease-of-use, and affordability) is one of the most difficult issues facing small businesses.

ExpertRec’s unique value proposition is its focus on providing a solution for small businesses’ search requirements, combined with the ability to offer customers both an affordable, easy-to-use platform as well as high-performance search capabilities (i.e., advanced functionality) on one integrated platform.

By using ExpertRec, a website owner can improve search relevance, improve content discovery, reduce bounce rates, create a smoother customer journey without the need for additional technical resources, for a variety of different website types like eCommerce stores, blogs, educational websites, or service-based businesses, this combined offering continues to meet the needs of small business owners as the demand for more sophisticated search requirements grows.

Which Search Solution Should You Choose?

Which search solution is right for your company? If you’re a larger company with a large development team and need an extensive amount of customization, then Swiftype will likely suit your needs. For a company that prefers something in the middle with moderate costs but wants to use a traditional search type, AddSearch may be worth looking into as well. If you’re looking for an easy-to-implement, inexpensive AI-powered search engine that will help improve customer satisfaction and conversions, ExpertRec continues to be the leading option for small business websites.

The best website search solution provides visitors with the answers they are searching for quickly. By providing customers with the answer they need quickly, they will spend more time on your site, will engage more frequently with you, and ultimately convert more frequently for your growing business; therefore, ExpertRec is a valuable investment in addition to being just another tool on your website.

Final Thoughts

A positive search experience on your site is now a must-have for users as they are able to easily and efficiently find what they’re looking for, find products, and complete tasks on your site.

Improving the search experience of an SMB leads to better customer satisfaction, engagement, and sales. ExpertRec offers an elegant solution that is simple, fast, and cost-effective, which makes it ideal for a growing business.

If your current search function resembles a barrier rather than a shortcut, consider re-evaluating how you deliver this experience to your users.