When you type in a search box, you probably have seen suggestions appear even if you’ve just typed a few letters. This is an example of using the autocomplete feature on your browser.

Autocomplete is more than just a convenience; it allows users to finish their searches faster, easier, and leads to the specific item they intended on purchasing (or at least had an idea of before they started typing).

Explaining Autocomplete in Basic Terms

Autocomplete is a feature to make it easier for you to find things by automatically displaying possible search terms to help you complete a query in the search bar. Instead of having to type your entire query into the search bar, you can click on a suggestion that is displayed to you by the auto-complete feature. For example, if you are searching for the word “burg” and have an autocomplete tool implemented, you might also see other possible suggestions based on what you have searched for previously, like “burger located near me,” etc.

There are three main components to an autocompletion system:

You can see what other users who have searched for the same term as you are looking for.

You can see how many times the same user has searched for certain terms.

You can see how previous keywords relate to each other for the same user.

According to a 2021 study published in the Search Engine Journal, over 70% of all users reported using the auto-complete feature in order to speed up the process of completing their searches. This means that the autocomplete feature performs an important function in assisting users and providing an invaluable service as well.

Why Autocomplete is More Important than You Might Think

Your users’ overall experience of your site can be directly affected by Autocomplete. Well done, it will decrease user effort, therefore increasing user satisfaction.

According to the Baymard Institute, nearly 70% of users abandon a site because of poor search performance; one of the major contributing factors to this statistic is people not having effective suggestions.

With a good Autocomplete program, your users can:

Quickly locate products

Eliminate spelling errors

Find something that they didn’t originally plan to search for

Jakob Nielsen, Usability Guru, says:

“Users spend the majority of their time on the web; they expect your site to be the same way.” And today, smart Autocomplete is part of that expectation.

Smart autocomplete for faster user search

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What is the process that allows autocomplete to function?

When a user enters text in their search app, it looks very simple to accomplish, but, in fact, there are a host of complex smart services that are working automatically and in real time to allow autocomplete to work the way it is designed to work – these include:

Tracking the common searches typed by users to get a sense of what people search for the most.

The application is able to recognize the partial typing of what the user begins to write.

Using real-time data analytics to rank the most commonly used search strings based on the user’s previous searches, before the user types, along with the words they entered previously and the words they are currently typing.

In addition, many advanced systems use artificial intelligence to provide personalized likely search terms to each user; therefore, if two people start typing the same string of letters into a search app, it is likely that the two of them will get different search results returned due to their previous use of that particular search engine.

This is why many people today refer to autocomplete as “predictive search” – this is a direct result of how the systems function.

Where Most Websites Go Wrong

Many websites still struggle with the important feature of autocomplete. Some of the most common issues with these autocomplete systems are:

– Providing irrelevant suggestions

– Slow system response times

– Lack of personalized content

– Not Taking into Account User Intent

An analysis done by Google found that 53% of mobile users will leave a webpage if it takes longer than 3 seconds for the webpage to load. As mentioned above, when autocomplete takes longer than 3 minutes to load, users will not wait and will leave.

How Expertrec Makes Autocomplete Smarter

Expertrec provides an easy-to-use and simple solution for providing fast and accurate autocomplete functionality for users to find what they are looking for quickly. While generic/autocomplete suggestions from many sites do not meet users’ needs, ExpertRec enables authors to provide their customers with:

– Suggestions based on your company’s specific needs

– Prioritizing products/content

– Automatically handling many common user misspellings and synonym issues

– Providing fast and accurate responses to queries, including response times measured in milliseconds

The reason that Expertrec is as powerful as it is simple. Implementing Expertrec is as easy as picking a product from a list and doesn’t require users to have advanced technical skills, but will result in a system with an enterprise-level performance.

According to Industry experts, websites using optimized search capabilities, such as autocomplete, will see their conversion rates increase by as much as 50%. The impact is beyond measure for this feature that gets ignored by so many.

Growth in Business Using Autocomplete

Autocomplete can be considered to be more than just a technological feature; it is also an aspect of a business. Autocomplete is an aspect of a business because if a user can quickly get an item, he or she is:

More likely to stay on the site for an extended period

More likely to keep looking at other items on the site

More likely to buy an item

The use of Autocomplete for Commerce can help direct users to the best-selling or most recent trends, which will lead to increased conversion rates.

Think of Autocomplete as a digital salesperson that will be available for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Final Thoughts

Autocomplete, while it has minor details, has a major effect on user experience and how quickly users find what they are looking for. In a world of decreasing attention spans, providing quick and relevant information to your users is always going to be critical in today’s marketplace.

Utilizing a solution like Expertrec will turn your website’s basic search feature into a tremendous sales tool through continuous use of suggested searches. If you search on the site, intelligent autocomplete should be included in the search. In this generation of users, almost all users expect to receive answers to their search requests within almost no time, and conduct searches in almost no time as well.