Every WooCommerce store owner has seen it: a customer searches for “blue running shoes” and gets a page full of blog posts. Or they search by a product SKU and get zero results.
A successful online store understands the importance of a seamless shopping experience. At the heart of that experience is the ability to find exactly what customers are looking for.
This is where the search results page plays a critical role. Just like a skilled salesperson who knows exactly where every item is located, your search results page should effortlessly guide customers to their desired products.
Unfortunately, the default WooCommerce search results page often lacks the finesse and customization needed to effectively highlight your products. It’s more than just finding items; it’s about presenting them in the best possible way to enhance customer engagement and boost conversions.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to customize the WooCommerce search results page to showcase your products effectively, leading to a better user experience and increased sales.
Why Your WooCommerce Search Results Page Needs Customizing
The efficiency and design of a search results page can impact everything from user engagement to overall profitability. It’s not just a nice-to-have; it can greatly boost your business.
When a shopper searches your store and lands on a bad results page, the damage happens fast. We’ve watched customers abandon carts simply because the search experience felt unreliable, and every one of those exits is a sale that never happened.
Here’s why a high-quality search results page is not just beneficial but essential for online stores:
- Relevant products get buried. WooCommerce’s default search doesn’t rank results by how well they match the query. A shopper searching “waterproof hiking boots” might see your newest post first even if it has nothing to do with what they need.
- Searches by SKU, attribute, or custom field come up empty. WooCommerce’s default engine doesn’t search product SKUs and custom fields. We’ve noticed that shoppers who know exactly what they want often search by model number, material or product spec, and those searches almost always come up empty.
- The results page looks nothing like your store. WordPress’s default search template shows blog-style excerpts and post dates. WooCommerce doesn’t automatically replace this with product cards, images, or prices, so shoppers see a layout that feels broken rather than shoppable.
- Out-of-stock products clutter the results. Out-of-stock products you’ve hidden from your shop page can still appear in the default search results. Shoppers see products they can’t buy, lose trust, and leave.
These aren’t isolated quirks, either. They’re part of a broader pattern in how WordPress handles search across every content type, not just products, and our guide on ways to improve WordPress search covers the fixes that apply site-wide.
Let’s look at how you can customize the results page in WooCommerce.
How To Turn Your WooCommerce Search From Good To Great
The default search functionality in WordPress primarily matches post titles, content, and excerpts. It doesn’t search custom fields, product attributes, or SKUs, which is where the important product details live.
This presents significant challenges for WooCommerce stores. Many crucial product details, such as attributes and variations, are stored as custom post types and fields, which the default WordPress search does not include in the search process.
You can overcome these limitations by using the SearchWP plugin.
It’s the most comprehensive search solution available for WordPress, and it has a dedicated extension for WooCommerce that ensures all product data is appropriately indexed.
With SearchWP, you can make almost all content on your site searchable, set custom search rules, track search activity to better understand customer preferences, and more.
Over 50,000 businesses worldwide rely on SearchWP to optimize their search experience and drive sales.
Along with making WooCommerce search great, SearchWP also comes with the following powerful features:
- Customizable Results Templates. Choose from multiple layout themes, switch between list and grid views, and control thumbnail size, button labels, and pagination style without writing a single line of code.
- WooCommerce Integration. SearchWP takes over WooCommerce’s default product search, ranks results by relevance, and automatically respects your store’s visibility rules, including out-of-stock filtering.
- Attribute-aware product indexing. Configure exactly which fields SearchWP searches, including product titles, descriptions, SKUs, custom fields, categories, and tags, each with its own relevance weight.
- Relevance-ranked results. SearchWP scores every result by how well it matches the query, so the most relevant products always surface first instead of the most recently published.
With that, let’s see how you can use SearchWP to customize your WooCommerce search results page.
Step 1: Install and Activate SearchWP
Before you can customize the WooCommerce search results page, you need to set up SearchWP for your online store.
To do that, you first need to visit the SearchWP website and sign up for a new account. The WooCommerce Integration covered requires the Pro plan or higher, so we recommend starting there.
Once you’ve signed up, go to the Downloads tab in your account dashboard. From there, click Download SearchWP and save the ZIP file to your computer, then copy your license key from the same screen.
Next, install and activate the plugin in WordPress. If you’re new to this, please see this step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Once the activation is successful, you’ll be greeted with a welcome wizard. Simply click on Start Onboarding Wizard to receive help configuring the initial setup.
SearchWP is now active and ready to configure. You’ll notice a new SearchWP menu in your WordPress admin sidebar.
Step 2: Install the WooCommerce Integration Extension
The WooCommerce Integration extension is what connects SearchWP to your product catalog and replaces WooCommerce’s default search behavior. It’s included with the Pro plan and higher. See the WooCommerce Integration documentation if you want the full rundown before installing.
From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to SearchWP » Extensions. Find WooCommerce Integration in the extensions list and click Install.
Once installed, SearchWP automatically intercepts WooCommerce’s frontend product search queries and routes them through its relevance engine.
Step 3: Configure Your Product Search Engine
With the extension active, you need to tell SearchWP which content to index for your WooCommerce store. From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to SearchWP » Algorithm.
From there, click Sources & Settings on the default engine.
You’ll see a list of available sources for the engine. You’ll want to select Products to add WooCommerce products as a searchable source.
Then click Done once you’ve selected the desired sources.
Once Products is added, you can further customize it and include additional details in the search process.
Simply click Add/Remove Attributes to choose which product fields SearchWP searches.
A new window should now open where you can manage different product attributes for your engine.
For instance, you can include product titles, descriptions, SKUs, custom fields, and WooCommerce’s built-in categories, tags, and attributes in the search process.
When you’re finished, click the Done button.
Next, click the Save button to initiate rebuilding your search index based on the new configuration.
Done! The foundation is complete. Now, it’s time to customize the WooCommerce search results page.
Step 4: Customize Your Search Results Template
SearchWP’s Results Templates let you control exactly how your WooCommerce search results page looks to shoppers.
From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to SearchWP » Templates. Open the default template to start customizing, or click Add New to create a store-specific one from scratch.
Next, you can choose a layout theme. You can start by selecting one of the 6 pre-designed layout themes of your choice.
The SearchWP Search Results Page effectively blends with your website’s current design and gives you significant control over the appearance of the primary elements of the search results page.
Overall, you have the following design elements to customize the search results page easily, you have:
- 6 pre-designed themes
- 3 pagination styles
- 2 layout styles
And countless styling combinations. You can customize the WooCommerce search results page according to your taste by tweaking the following styling options.
You should be able to modify these settings as you like without any difficulties, as the options are pretty self-explanatory. Don’t worry if you don’t see the modification reflected in the sample design above, as your customization will appear on the live search results page.
Once you are satisfied with the customization of your WooCommerce search results page, click Save to store your modification.
Step 5: Create and Configure Your Search Form
Now that you have modified your search results page according to your needs, it’s time to put it into action. You can use the SearchWP search results page with all search forms created with SearchWP.
To start, navigate to SearchWP » Search Forms and click Add New. You can learn more about how to create an advanced search form by visiting this tutorial.
You can now tweak the search form according to your needs.
Name the search form, pick a layout theme, and make other styling changes.
Our main objective is to link the search results page to this search form.
To do that, scroll down to find Results Page and select SearchWP from the dropdown.
Two additional fields will appear. Under Target Page, choose the page where results will display, or leave it set to its default and let SearchWP handle the routing automatically. Under Template, select the results template you customized in Step 4.
Once you’ve completed other modifications to the search form, click Save at the top right corner.
Now, all that is left to do is publish the search form, as the search results page will only appear after a search is performed through the search form.
To do that, edit the shop page on your WooCommerce store. In the content editor, click the + icon, then find and select the SearchWP Form block from the list.
Then, pick the search form you created a few moments ago from the dropdown in the SearchWP Form block.
You should now see the search bar displayed in your desired location.
Simply click Update or Publish to show the search form created for the custom WooCommerce search results page.
Finally, visit your website front-end and see your custom WooCommerce Search Results Page in action.
Pro Tip: To create a dedicated results page for your store, create a new WordPress page and add the SearchWP Results block to it. Publish the page and then select it under Target Page in your search form settings.
With everything configured, visit your WooCommerce store and run a few test searches. We recommend starting with a search that WooCommerce’s default engine would have struggled with, such as a product material, a custom attribute, or a product SKU.
Taking WooCommerce Search Results Page to the Next Level
Optimizing the search results page of your online store is vital for improving user experience and driving engagement with your products. Let’s explore several effective strategies to refine your search results, all of which can be seamlessly integrated using SearchWP’s advanced capabilities.
- Implement Live Search for Instant Feedback: Modernize your online store’s search experience by incorporating live search functionality. With Ajax-powered live search, users receive instant feedback as they type, creating a more dynamic and engaging browsing experience that encourages exploration of your product offerings.
- Prioritize and Order Search Results Strategically: You can guide your customers to the most relevant products by strategically ordering search results. When you customize the WooCommerce search results page, you can highlight featured products or promotions, increasing their visibility and driving conversions
- Showcase Related Products: Showcasing related products alongside search results boosts engagement and encourages discovery. By presenting complementary or similar items, you can entice shoppers to explore additional products and increase their likelihood of making a purchase.
- Exclude Non-Relevant Content: Enhance the quality of search results by excluding irrelevant products or categories. By fine-tuning SearchWP settings to filter out non-relevant content, you can streamline the search process and ensure that users find what they’re looking for quickly and easily.
- Incorporate a Well-Designed Search Form: A well-designed search form simplifies your customers’ search experience. By providing intuitive search options and filters, you empower users to refine their search queries and discover products that meet their specific needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Does SearchWP work with WooCommerce products?
Yes, SearchWP includes a dedicated WooCommerce Integration extension (Pro+) that replaces WooCommerce’s default product search. It routes all frontend product search queries through SearchWP’s relevance engine and automatically respects WooCommerce’s visibility rules, including out-of-stock filtering. We use it on WooCommerce stores of all sizes, and it works reliably out of the box.
2. How do I change what appears on the WooCommerce search results page?
To control which products appear in results, navigate to SearchWP » Algorithm and configure your engine’s sources and attributes. Add the Products source, then click Add/Remove Attributes to choose which product fields are searched. Adjust the relevance weight sliders and click Save, then click Rebuild Index to apply the changes.
3. Can I display product images on the WooCommerce search results page?
Yes. SearchWP’s Results Templates let you display product images, titles, descriptions, prices, and call-to-action buttons in your search results. Navigate to SearchWP » Templates, open your template, and configure the image size and layout settings to match your store’s design. From our experience, switching to the grid layout with images enabled makes the biggest difference in how shoppable the results page feels.
4. Does SearchWP search WooCommerce product attributes and SKUs?
SearchWP can search any product field you configure in the engine editor, including SKUs, custom fields, and product attributes. Navigate to SearchWP » Algorithm, open your engine, click Add/Remove Attributes for the Products source, and enable the fields you want searched. This covers product categories, tags, custom fields, and any data WooCommerce stores in post meta.
5. What plan do I need to use SearchWP with WooCommerce?
The WooCommerce Integration (Pro+) extension requires the Pro plan or higher. The core SearchWP plugin at the Standard plan already includes Results Templates, Search Forms, and all indexing features. Upgrading to Pro adds the WooCommerce Integration along with other eCommerce extensions for Easy Digital Downloads and BigCommerce.
What’s Next…
You now have a WooCommerce search results page that’s relevance-ranked, fully customizable, and built to convert. SearchWP handles the product search, the results layout, and the shopper experience from a single admin panel, and the whole setup takes under 10 minutes.
We hope this article helped you learn how to customize the WooCommerce search results page. You may also want to see our guides on how to add custom WooCommerce search widgets and how to customize the WordPress search results page to take your store’s search experience even further.
Ready to improve your store’s search? You can get started with SearchWP here.
