If you’re looking to provide an exceptional user experience, then WordPress search plays a vital role. A clunky search experience can leave users lost and abandoning your site in a flash.
The default WordPress search has very limited features and doesn’t provide full control. However, with the right settings and plugin, you can improve your visitors’ searching experience.
In this article, we will show you how to set up WordPress search settings for best results.
Why Change WordPress Search Settings?
Think of your WordPress website’s search function as a friendly guide. It helps users navigate your content quickly and efficiently.
By fine-tuning the search settings, you can enhance the user experience. A seamless search experience keeps users engaged and encourages them to come back for more.
It also helps users find evergreen and valuable content on your site. Imagine writing a great blog post, but nobody can find it when they search for it on your site.
With the right search settings, you can make the process more efficient and provide visitors with relevant results.
That said, let’s look at how to configure WordPress search for best results.
1. Replace Default WordPress Search with SearchWP
While the default WordPress search might be good enough for small businesses and personal websites, it might not be the right fit for large websites that have lots of content or online products.
The default search has limited features and customization options.
For instance, the default search only covers post titles, content, and excerpts. It does not include additional information such as categories, tags, user comments, custom fields, documents, or details like SKUs and product attributes from WooCommerce products.
Plus, you can’t customize the default search settings from the WordPress dashboard. You’d have to edit code or hire a developer, which can be tricky and expensive for beginners.
This is where you can replace the default search with SearchWP. It is the best search plugin for WordPress and helps provide more accurate search results to visitors.
You can set up custom search engines for your website and include additional information in the search process without touching a single line of code.
First, you’ll need to visit the SearchWP website and sign up for an account. Simply click the ‘Get SearchWP Now’ button to get started.
After signing up for a new account, go ahead and download the SearchWP plugin
You can find the plugin in your SearchWP account area under the ‘Downloads’ tab. Simply click the ‘Download SearchWP’ button and save the file on your computer.
From here, you can install and activate the plugin on your site. If you need help, then please see this guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Once the plugin is active, you’ll see the SearchWP welcome screen and setup wizard. Go ahead and click the ‘Start Onboarding Wizard’ button and follow the onscreen instructions.
2. Add New Sources and Attributes to WordPress Search
Next, you can change WordPress search settings by editing or creating a new search engine.
With SearchWP, you can run multiple search engines on your site and choose additional sources and attributes to find content on your site.
To start, head to SearchWP » Algorithm from the WordPress dashboard. Here, you can edit the existing search engine or add a new one. For this tutorial, we will simply change the default search engine.
Next, you can click the ‘Sources & Settings’ button at the top. This will allow you to include additional sources for your WordPress search engine.
For example, you can select categories, comments, tags, users, eCommerce products, and other sources to be included in the search process.
After selecting different sources, simply click the ‘Done’ button.
Next, you can change the weights assigned to each attribute for different post types by moving the slider.
SearchWP also lets you add or remove attributes.
If you click the ‘Add/Remove Attributes’ button under the source, then you’ll see a new popup window with options to manage attributes.
For instance, you can choose different Attribute Sources, select custom fields on your site, and add taxonomies to add to the search process.
3. Add Rules to Get the Best WordPress Search Results
Next, you can also add multiple rules in SearchWP to create custom searches and help users find the best results.
Simply click the ‘Edit Rule’ button for any source in the search algorithm.
Next, a new popup window will open where you can edit the rules.
Go ahead and click the ‘Add Rule’ button.
After that, you can enter the conditions for your new rule.
For instance, you can only show search results for posts and pages published before a certain date, display results from specific categories, or enter post IDs to filter content.
When you’re finished, simply click the ‘Done’ button.
Your visitors will now see search results based on the conditional logic rules you’ve set.
4. Add Synonyms and Stopwords to Improve Search Accuracy
Another way you can configure WordPress search settings is by adding synonyms for specific search terms and adding stopwords to enhance search accuracy.
This will help users find relevant content when they enter synonyms for related topics on your site.
In SearchWP, you can easily specify synonyms and stopwords. Simply head to SearchWP » Algorithm from the WordPress admin panel and then go to the ‘Global Rules’ tab.
After that, you can click the ‘Add New’ button and then enter the search terms and their synonyms. When you’re done, simply click the ‘Save Synonyms’ button.
Next, you can scroll down to the Stopwords section and omit certain words to streamline the searching process.
Stopwords are common words (like is, the, an, a, in, at, and if) that are not helpful when searching and do not carry significant meaning in identifying the content.
By default, SearchWP will have a lot of stopwords added to the library and ignore them when searching. But you can also add more to improve search relevancy and performance.
5. Enable Partial and Fuzzy Searches in WordPress
You can further expand WordPress search and show accurate results by enabling partial and fuzzy searches.
Fuzzy search helps provide search results for terms that are phonetically similar. So, if a user enters an incorrect spelling or makes a typo when typing the search term, then they’ll still see the right content.
With SearchWP, you can easily enable partial and fuzzy searches. Simply head to SearchWP » Settings from the WordPress admin panel and go to the ‘General’ tab. From here, scroll down to the General Settings section and click the toggle to enable Partial Matches.
For more details, please see our guide on how to add fuzzy search to WordPress sites.
Bonus: Improve WordPress Search Experience for Visitors
Aside from changing WordPress search settings, you can also improve the overall search experience for your visitors by making small tweaks.
1. Add Live Autocomplete Search
Many popular search engines, like Google, offer an autocomplete feature that guesses what the user is searching for and provides relevant results as the user types.
You can add the same autocomplete feature to your WordPress site and boost the search experience. Users can instantly find the content they’re looking for and also learn about other content on your site.
With SearchWP, it’s very easy to add an autocomplete feature to your site’s search. You can learn more by going through our guide on how to add live autocomplete search to WordPress sites.
2. Highlight Search Terms in WordPress
Do you want to point users to the right content quickly and get more clicks?
A simple way to do that is to highlight search terms on the search page. Your visitors can quickly scan the page, find relevant content, and click on the link.
For more details, please see our step-by-step guide on how to highlight search terms in WordPress.
3. Add Filters to WordPress Search
If your website has a lot of content or products, then you can add filters to WordPress search and make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for.
For example, you can create filters based on tags, authors, post types, product categories, and more. Your visitors can then use these filters to narrow down their search and quickly find relevant posts and pages.
If you need help setting up filters, then see our guide on how to add filters to WordPress search.
We hope this article helped you learn about how to set up WordPress search settings for the best results. You may also want to see our guide on how to include shortcode results in WordPress search and how to see search metrics in WordPress.
Ready to create a better and more personalized WordPress search experience? Get started with SearchWP today!
