Searching for content on a website should feel effortless. When a visitor types a word into your search bar, they expect to see helpful results almost instantly, not wait for a brand new page to load with a list that may or may not be useful.
Live autocomplete search makes that instant experience possible. As a visitor types, matching results appear in a dropdown right below the search bar.
It works a lot like the search bar on Google, where suggestions pop up before you even finish typing your query. We’ve worked on many WordPress sites over the years, and one of the first things we always set up is live autocomplete search.
It’s one of those small changes that makes a big difference to how visitors interact with a site. The default WordPress search just doesn’t come close to delivering that kind of experience.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to add live autocomplete search to your WordPress site. You don’t need to write a single line of code, and the whole setup takes just a few minutes.
What Is Live Autocomplete Search & Why Does It Matter?
These days, online users have high expectations for search. Search engines like Google offer advanced features, including live autocomplete search and predictive suggestions. These features give better search results and save time, enhancing overall user experience.
If you want to improve your site’s search experience, you need to add live autocomplete search. It allows search engines to guess what a user is searching for and, in return, provides relevant suggestions as they type. With this feature, users don’t need to manually complete their search or load a different page to see the results.
Adding this feature to your site has tons of benefits. For example, adding live autocomplete search to WordPress will help your website visitors find what they’re looking for instantly.
The live autofill feature suggests results as users type in their queries. Your site will also show more relevant results based on its content.
Besides improving the search experience, autocomplete educates users about your site. Even when the suggestions don’t match the search intent, the user knows your site contains the suggested product or content.
Since your users no longer need to type many keywords, they can avoid typos and reduce search time. This ensures a better user experience, and your visitors can spend more time on your site and buy more products.
The good news is that you can easily add live autocomplete search to WordPress. Let’s see how to do it step by step.
How To Add Live Autocomplete Search (Easy Way)
To add live autocomplete search to your website, you need the free SearchWP Live Ajax Search plugin. It automatically attaches to your existing WordPress search forms with no code required.
If you’d also like more powerful features, such as multiple search engines, PDF or document indexing, WooCommerce integration, and custom relevance settings, we recommend the premium version of SearchWP. It is the best WordPress search plugin, trusted by 50,000+ website owners.
Now, let’s walk through the setup step by step.
Step 1: Install And Activate The SearchWP Live Ajax Search Plugin
To install SearchWP Live Ajax Search, simply go to Plugins » Add New in your WordPress dashboard.
On the plugins page, type ‘SearchWP’ in the search bar. You’ll see a list of SearchWP extensions.
Once you find the SearchWP Live Ajax Search plugin, click Install Now and then Activate.
If you need help with this, then please go through this guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
The Settings page will open automatically once you activate the SearchWP Live Ajax Search plugin.
Step 2: Customize Your Live Search
You will notice that the Enable Live Search toggle is active by default.
Next, you can scroll down and select a layout theme.
SearchWP offers multiple prebuilt layouts to choose from, and you get to see a preview as well.
From here, you can further customize the layouts by viewing the Custom Styling section.
For instance, there are options to enable description, display image, price, add to cart, and more.
Next, you can scroll down to the Results section.
Here, you’ll find options to include styling, change the positioning, enable auto width, change max results, and more.
When you’ve made the changes, simply click the Save button at the top.
Step 3: See The Live Autocomplete Search In Action
After installing SearchWP Live Ajax Search, test the new autocomplete feature. You can do this by navigating to your site’s front end.
When you type in any query on your existing search forms, you’ll see the live autocomplete search in action.
How To Add An Autofill Search Form In WordPress
Now that your site has a live autocomplete search, it’s time to decide where you want to display the search forms.
You can add live autocomplete search to your site’s sidebar, header, and footer areas, or any blog post or page.
Let’s see how to display the search bar in any of these locations.
Displaying Autofill Search Form In WordPress Sidebar/Footer/Header
Most WordPress site owners like to display the search form in the sidebar. In this location, your visitors can quickly complete their search no matter what page they’re on.
The footer and header may be ideal for pages like the homepage or shop page.
You can add a search bar to any of these locations using the widget function.
To access it, go to Appearance » Widgets from your WordPress dashboard. Do note that the widget area may vary based on the theme you are using.
On this page, you can add a live search bar to any area you choose using the block-based widget editor.
First, click on the widget area you want and then the ‘+’ icon. When the widgets list pops up, type ‘Search’ in the search bar. Then click the SearchWP Live Search widget to add the autofill search field.
Now, please customize the search bar according to your needs.
After that, click Update in the upper-right corner.
Your search field is now ready for display. Please note that, depending on your active WordPress theme, you may not be able to use some widget areas.
Displaying Autofill Search Field On Any Page Of Your Website
You can also add a search field to any page of your website. The Block Editor makes it easy to add a search bar here.
To do this, open any page in Edit mode and click the ‘+’ icon on the location where you want to add the search bar.
Next, type ‘search’ and select the Search block.
Once you customize the block according to your choice, click Update.
You have successfully added the live autocomplete search to your WordPress site. You can also follow these same steps to add a live search bar to any post.
How To Customize The Live Autocomplete Search Form
On one hand, the WordPress default search form offers limited features, which may frustrate your visitors. On the other hand, creating an ideal search form is challenging as it’s time-consuming and requires expert coding skills.
However, the SearchWP premium version makes it super easy to do. You can add an advanced search form almost immediately without writing a single line of code!
An advanced search form will help you reduce frustration and increase engagement with your content, providing an improved user experience and decreased bounce rate. Please follow our detailed guide on how to create advanced search forms in WordPress (easily).
After adding the live autocomplete search to your site, you may want to improve your website’s search further. You can program your site’s search results based on a custom priority scale. This will significantly enhance the search experience.
One of the reasons why SearchWP is immensely popular is the fact that it offers tons of advanced features for adjusting your search algorithm. You can do all these without writing any line of code.
With the premium version of SearchWP, you can adjust the relevance of each source, content attribute, or decide which content to index.
You can also create and use different search engines on different site locations. This will help you offer a unique search experience in each of these locations.
To learn more, you can see our guide on how to change the default WordPress search settings.
FAQs About Live Autocomplete Search in WordPress
1. Will live autocomplete search work with my current WordPress theme?
Yes, SearchWP is designed to work with almost every WordPress theme. The Live Search extension automatically connects to the existing search forms on your site, so you don’t need to make any changes to your theme files to get it working.
2. Can I control what content appears in the autocomplete dropdown?
SearchWP gives you full control over what sources your search engine looks through. You can include or exclude posts, pages, custom post types, WooCommerce products, and more by adjusting the sources.
3. Does live autocomplete search work with WooCommerce products?
Yes, it does. SearchWP has a dedicated WooCommerce Integration extension that makes your products fully searchable. Once that extension is installed, your live autocomplete search will start showing WooCommerce products in the dropdown as visitors type.
4. Can I add live autocomplete search to multiple search forms on my site?
SearchWP allows you to create multiple search forms and link each one to a specific search engine. This means you can have live autocomplete search running on every search form across your site at the same time.
So in summary, live autocomplete search is a powerful feature you can use to boost your site conversions and average visit duration. SearchWP Live Ajax Search makes it very easy to add this feature to your native WordPress search.
We hope this article helped you learn how to add live autocomplete search to your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guides on how to make the knowledge base searchable on WordPress and how to limit search on your site to WooCommerce products.
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