If you have ever tried to find a specific product in an online store, but the website’s search just wasn’t helpful, then it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
That’s exactly how your visitors will feel when they visit your Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) store and can’t find what they’re looking for.
If people can’t search your store easily, then it’s like having a shop with all the lights turned off. They might get frustrated and leave without buying anything. But with the right plugin, you can easily make your digital products searchable.
In this article, we will show you how to make Easy Digital Downloads products searchable in WordPress.
Why Default WordPress Search Doesn’t Work for EDD?
The standard WordPress search is okay for basic eCommerce stores that have few products. It can find some things, but it misses a lot. That’s why it is far from perfect if you have an Easy Digital Downloads store with lots of products.
One big problem is how the default search looks at product details. It may not pay attention to things like product categories made just for your digital items or special tags you’ve added to describe them.
Beyond that, think about all the words you use in your product descriptions. You might describe file types, software versions, or other specific details that help customers find the right thing. The default search can sometimes miss words within these descriptions, making it harder for people to find exactly what they need.
This can be really annoying for your customers. They might type in exactly what they’re looking for and get nothing useful. This bad search experience can lead to fewer sales and losing potential customers.
That said, let’s look at a simple way of helping visitors find digital products on your Easy Digital Downloads store.
Make EDD Products Searchable in WordPress
The best way to include your Easy Digital Downloads product in the search process is by using SearchWP.
It is the best search plugin for WordPress that’s trusted by over 50,000 website owners. SearchWP easily integrates with Easy Digital Downloads along with other popular eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce and BigCommerce.
What’s great about using SearchWP is that it lets you include product details, order history, custom fields, comments, SKUs, taxonomies, and much more in the search process.
First, you can visit the SearchWP website and sign up for a new account.
After that, you’ll need to do is download the SearchWP plugin.
To do that, head to your account area and switch to the ‘Downloads’ tab. From here, you can click the Download SearchWP button and save the plugin file to your computer.
Next, you can install and activate the SearchWP plugin on your site. For more details, please see this guide on how to install the WordPress plugin.
Once the plugin is active, SearchWP will show a welcome screen and setup wizard in your WordPress dashboard. Simply click the ‘Start Onboarding Wizard’ button and follow the onscreen instructions.
After that, you can head to SearchWP » Extensions from the WordPress dashboard.
Simply navigate to the ‘EDD Integration’ and then click the ‘Install’ button.
The extension will now automatically install and activate. You should see the Status change from Not Installed to Active.
The next step is to customize the search engine settings and include your digital products in the search process.
Customize Search Engine Settings to Include Digital Products
With SearchWP, you can edit the default WordPress search or create an entirely new engine.
The best part is that you can set up multiple search engines and link them to different search forms. This way, you can help customers find exactly what they are looking for by narrowing down the search process.
For this tutorial, we will edit the default WordPress search settings. But if you want to set up additional engines, then please see our guide on how to add multiple search forms in WordPress.
To edit the search settings, you will need to go to the SearchWP » Algorithm page from your WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Sources & Settings’ button.
You’ll now see a new window with the default sources for the search engine, which includes posts, pages, and media by default.
To include your EDD products, make sure to select the Downloads option as a source and then click the ‘Done’ button.
After that, you’ll need to scroll down to the ‘Downloads’ section in the search engine settings and select the attributes you want to search.
Attributes are the fields you want to search for a given source, like title, content, excerpt, slug, custom fields, taxonomy terms and more.
To include more details, simply click the ‘Add/Remove Attributes’ button.
Next, you will see a new popup open where you can manage the search attributes.
SearchWP will use title, content, slug, excerpt, and author as attributes by default. But you can also include custom fields, categories, and tags when searching for products.
For instance, if you have organized your digital products based on categories like e-books, music and videos, then you can include them under Taxonomies. Simply click the dropdown menu and select the ‘Download Categories’ option.
Similarly, you can also include custom fields, such as file format and size, software version number, duration for videos and audio files, and more.
When you’re finished, simply click the ‘Done’ button.
SearchWP will now include download details you selected as attributes during the search process.
You can also use the slider to adjust the relevance weight. The further right the slider, the higher in search results that particular Attribute will appear.
Next, you can scroll back to the top and click the ‘Save’ button.
Once that’s done, you will also need to click the ‘Rebuild Index’ button.
That’s it! You have now successfully made your digital products searchable on your Easy Digital Downloads store.
Next, you can visit your website and search for different products to see if the search is working properly.
For instance, we added an e-book about cooking to our demo EDD site. When searching for the digital product using the live search features in SearchWP, it showed the e-book.
What’s Next…
Now that you know how to include Easy Digital Downloads product in WordPress search, here are some additional resources that will help you improve the search experience on your eCommerce site:
- How to Track Searches on Your WordPress Site
- How to Change the Default WordPress Search Settings (3 Steps)
- How to Fix WooCommerce Product Search Not Working
- How To Show Related Content In WordPress
- How to Change the Search Results Order in WordPress (No Coding)
We hope this article helped you learn how to make Easy Digital Downloads products searchable in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to set up synonym rules for WordPress search and how to add a search bar to your WordPress.
Ready to create a better and more personalized WordPress search experience for your Easy Digital Download customers? Get started with SearchWP today!
