The search results page on your website acts like a curator in a gallery, presenting the finest pieces most engagingly.
If the curator falters, even the most exquisite art fails to impress.
Similarly, if your search results page is clunky, the best of your products or content might go unnoticed. It’s not just about finding the right items; it’s about displaying them well.
In this article, we’ll show you how to customize the WordPress search results page using SearchWP. So, it can be the expert curator your website deserves, leading to increased engagement and growth.
Why Do You Need A Good Search Results Page?
Having a well-designed and efficient search results page is crucial for a website or any online business, and the absence of one can have significant negative impacts. Here are some reasons why a good search results page matters.
- User Experience: A poor search results page can create a frustrating user experience. If customers cannot find what they are looking for quickly and easily, they are more likely to leave the website and seek alternatives. This not only reduces the chance of immediate sales but can also damage the long-term reputation of the business.
- Conversion Rates: The primary goal of a website or an online business is to convert casual visitors into paying customers. A search results page that is confusing, slow, or irrelevant can significantly lower conversion rates. Visitors who find what they are looking for have a positive experience and are more likely to make a purchase and return in the future.
- Customer Insights: A good search results page provides valuable data about customer preferences and behavior. This data can be used to improve inventory management, marketing strategies, and overall user experience. Without effective search analytics, a business may miss out on these insights, hindering its ability to adapt and grow.
- Competitive Advantage: In a crowded online marketplace, having a superior search experience can be a significant competitive advantage. It demonstrates attention to customer needs and technological proficiency, setting the business apart from competitors with less effective search features.
- Brand Loyalty and Trust: A good search results page helps build brand loyalty and trust. When customers know they can easily find what they need, they are more likely to return and recommend the site to others.
Customizing Your WordPress Search Results Page
Your WordPress website’s default search results page has many restrictions.
For instance, it provides limited customization options and cannot showcase non-post content types such as authors, categories, or tags.
This is where you need a plugin that lets you take control of your website’s search results page, like SearchWP.
It is the best WordPress search plugin that provides the most advanced search result customization for your website.
Over 50,000 website owners use it to improve their search results and keep users engaged.
SearchWP allows you to bypass the limitations of your theme and build a search page that actually helps your visitors.
The best part is that you can create multiple search results templates and connect to different search forms.
Besides that, here are some key SearchWP features has to offer:
- Fuzzy search: This feature lets your visitors find what they need even if they make a typo in the search bar.
- PDF indexing: You can make the content inside your PDF files searchable, which is great for document-heavy sites.
- Visitor insights: We use this to see exactly what people are searching for and find gaps in our content strategy.
- Exclude specific content: It allows you to hide specific pages or outdated posts from showing up in the results.
With that, let’s look at the steps to customize the WordPress search results page.
Step 1: Install and Activate SearchWP
To get started, you need to grab your copy of the SearchWP plugin by visiting the website and signing up for an account.
After picking your plan, go to the ‘Downloads’ tab on your SearchWP account.
Go ahead and click the Download SearchWP button to save the ZIP file to your computer.
Remember to copy your license key from this page, as you’ll be needing it in the setup process.
Next, install SearchWP like you would with any WordPress plugin. If you need help with this part, you can check out a beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
After you activate the plugin, you will see a welcome screen with a setup wizard. Simply click the ‘Start Onboarding Wizard’ button and follow the simple onscreen instructions to set everything up.
Step 2: Setting Up Your Search Engine With SearchWP
Next, you can customize the search engine in SearchWP to provide a better search experience.
The default WordPress search is pretty basic and can’t handle custom post types, eCommerce products, document content, or taxonomies.
To improve search process, simply go to your WordPress Dashboard and head to SearchWP » Algorithm.
Here, you can edit the sources for your search engine and include products, documents, jobs, and more.
Besides that, SearchWP also lets you include additional information stored in custom fields, categories, and tags as well.
You can simply edit the attributes for each of your sources and add them to the search process.
To customize your search engine, please see our detailed guide on how to change your WordPress site’s default search settings.
Step 3: Customize The WordPress Search Results Page
The groundwork is done. Now you can start customizing the search results page of your WordPress website.
To do that, navigate to the WordPress dashboard and go to SearchWP » Templates. From here, you can add a new results template or edit the default template.
SearchWP understands that your search results page is unique, and only you know which style would work best for your visitors.
That’s why there are 6 predesigned theme layouts for you to pick and choose. You can see the preview right underneath.
Do note that the final appearance may vary depending on the WordPress theme you’re using.
After picking a style, you can scroll down to the ‘Custom Styling’ section.
Here you can change the look and feel of the search results page to match the rest of your website. For that, you have the following options.
- Layout Style: Switch between a ‘Grid’ or ‘List’ view for your search results. Additionally, you can decide the number of results to display in each row.
- Basic Styling: Customize the appearance of various elements, such as titles and images.
- Description: You can show or hide the description of the content/products from search results.
- Images: Define the size of the images on your search results page. Choose from small, medium, large, or none.
- Title Style: Adjust the font color and size for the titles in the search results.
- Price Style: If you have WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads products on your website, you can change the color and font size of their prices.
- Button: If you choose to display a button (like ‘Read More’), this setting allows you to toggle it on or off and customize the button label, background color, font color, and font size.
- Results per Page: Determine how many search results you want to show per page, which helps manage the length of your search results pages.
- Pagination Style: Customize the pagination navigation style at the bottom of the search results page. You can choose ‘No Box,’ ‘Boxed,’ or ‘Circular’ styles to match your site’s design.
When you are done customizing the WordPress search results page, click Save at the top to complete the process.
Step 4: Make The Search Results Page Visible
The Search Results Page in SearchWP works hand in hand with Search Forms.
To create a search form, you can go to SearchWP » Search Forms and click Add New or edit an existing search form.
Next, you can edit the search form by choosing a template, renaming it, and more.
For more details, please see our guide on how to create advanced search forms in WordPress.
During search form creation, scroll down to the ‘Custom Styling’ section.
Here, you’ll see a field titled Results Page. Please select SearchWP from the dropdown menu. There is also an option to change the target page and choose the template (if you have created more than 1).
When you’re done, simply save your settings.
Step 5: Embed the Results Page on Your Site (Optional)
Now, before we proceed, dot note that this is an optional step.
Search results templates can be used without the need to embed them in a page.
In the form settings, if the Results Page is “SearchWP” and the Target Page is “SearchWP Default”, then the template will be used instead of the default WordPress template. No need to embed the template.
However, if you want to manually embed the templates, then you can click the Embed button on the Templates page in SearchWP to get started.
SearchWP will offer 3 options to embed your search results template, and they include a Gutenberg block, shortcode, and PHP code.
You can either choose an existing page or a new page to display the results template.
For instance, selecting the Gutenberg block and a new page will take you to the content editor.
Here, your SearchWP Results block is added to your page.
Note: The results are displayed according to the engine and template assigned in the Search Form settings. Under the block settings in the panel on the right, you have the option to choose a different template and the engine to display the results.
This is not typically required and should be used only if necessary to override the setting set by the search form.
When you’re done, simply click the Publish or Update button in the content editor.
Now, perform a search in the form you just created and linked with the Search Results page on the front end of your website. You’ll see your tailor-made search results page appear.
Here’s how the results template appeared on our demo eCommerce store:
FAQs about Customizing WordPress Search Results
We know that changing core WordPress pages can bring up a few questions. Here are the answers to some of the most common questions we get asked about this topic.
1. Can I customize the search results page without a plugin?
Yes, you can, but it requires editing your theme’s search.php file with PHP code. We have found that this method is risky for beginners because one wrong line of code can break your site. Using a plugin like SearchWP is much safer and faster for most users.
2. Will this work with my specific WordPress theme?
SearchWP is designed to work with almost every WordPress theme out there. Since we are creating a brand new page and using a shortcode to display results, it usually plays nicely with your existing design. Plus, SearchWP supports popular website builders like Elementor, Oxygen, Beaver Builder, and Divi.
3. Can I style the search results to match my brand colors?
Absolutely. SearchWP templates come with the option to change the main color, edit titles, buttons, and more. This makes it super easy to match your brand colors without the need to use custom CSS for styling.
Your search results page is not merely about enhancing aesthetics; it’s about creating a seamless, intuitive experience for your users.
We hope this article helped you learn how to customize the WordPress search results page easily. You may also want to see our guide on how to filter WooCommerce products by attributes and how to make comments searchable in WordPress.
Get SearchWP today to join the ranks of sites that prioritize excellence in every user interaction!
