How to build an internal search on your website

Most content management systems (CMS) support built-in search solutions, but they don't always have all the necessary features. Therefore, many website owners prefer to add a "live search" to the website with drop-down tips, with which users immediately see relevant results according to their request:

You can also implement the search feature involving additional filters of category, size, color, model and other parameters:

Website search can be analyzed through Google Analytics and apply this data to improve SEO. Thanks to data analysis, you can find out what users find/cannot find and build landing pages, change navigation, rename categories, etc.

To enable crawling on the website search, you need to find out which parameter is used for this function. You can see it in the URL bar when searching on the website. For example, the /search/? Search = "user query" or search.php? S= "search query" option may be used:

Then, go to the "Admin" section in Google Analytics and select the desired view. In the settings, enable site search tracking:

Next, add the query parameters and, if necessary, the category parameters used on the website:

The category parameter can also be found in the URL bar while using the advanced search within a specific category. After entering the parameters, click "Save".

You can view the search queries of visitors in the "Behavior" section - "Site search":

You can add a Google search to the website. First of all, you need to get the search engine identifier:

This method can be used to add Google search to any websites, regardless of the CMS.

Fill in the fields, indicating the domain name, the language and the name of the search engine. Then, click "Create":

Then you need to copy the generated code to the website:

You can add an advanced search using the corresponding modules for your CMS. Let's have a look at examples of free extensions that you can quickly install on your website.

[Free] Ajax live search is a free plugin for online stores running on OpenCart.

The module is compatible with OpenCart versions 2-3; it supports multiple languages, easy to install and setup without changing the source code of the resource.

To install the module, download the archive for the appropriate OpenCart version:

In the downloaded archive, change the extension: .zip to .xml:

Next, download this file through the admin panel of the website. Go to the "Extensions Installer" and click "Download".

After installing or removing OpenCart modules, you must update the cache modifiers. Otherwise, the changes won't be displayed on the site. Go to the "Extension Modifications" section and click "Update":

Next, go to "Extensions", install the "Ajax Live Search" module and proceed setting it up:

Here you can configure the module according to your own preferences. Next, change the status of the module by selecting "Enabled".

The module is installed correctly; the website now has built-in advanced search.

In WordPress extensions store you can find different search plugins. Let's consider installing the WP Google Search plugin, which allows you to add a Google search form to your website:

This plugin will allow you to accurately tune the style of the search box, add autosuggestion, use statistics logs of site visitors' requests.

Go to the "Plugins" section and click "Add New". Next, find the plugin by name and click "Install":

Once installed, click "Activate". After that, you need to configure the search by going to the new "WP Google Search" section:

You will need to configure Google search for the correct plugin performance, as described previously in paragraph 2.

After that, go back to the WordPress admin panel, click "Appearance" and select "Theme editor".

Then you need to edit and update the page.php template by pasting the copied code to the right place:

The last step is to get back to the Google Custom Search settings and copy the search engine identifier:

We'll add this code to the website admin panel:

Once finished, all website pages except the main page will have Google search:

After testing the search feature, we see that it correctly displays the website pages right after ad results:

To add a search to the main page, you need to edit the front-page.php template separately and add the search code to it.

A user-friendly website search is important for any large resource. You can set up an advanced search on the website using special modules or ready-made solutions from search engines.

Google Search on a website allows you to customize and configure the interface, use additional parameters, and quickly receive detailed statistics on requests from website visitors.