What Shoppers Search for on Your Shopify Store, and How to Use It

The terms shoppers type into your store's search box are the plainest statement of demand you will get: their own words for what they want, at the moment they want it. A search report shows which terms are used most, which return no results, and where the names you use differ from the names customers use. This guide covers where to find the terms, how to read the top searches and the zero-result searches, and how to turn what you learn into product names, stock decisions and collections.

Where do you find what shoppers search for?

In your analytics. Shopify's reports include the searches made on your online store, and the searches that returned no results, and analytics apps that record store visits can report them too. Whichever you use, export a few months of terms into a spreadsheet for the first review, because the useful work is grouping them.

Before reading, tidy the list:

• merge plurals, capitals and obvious misspellings, so 'candle', 'Candles' and 'candel' count as one;
• separate product searches from service searches such as 'returns' or 'track order';
• note the count beside each group.

What do the top searches tell you?

What people expected to find quickly and did not. Someone who uses the search box has skipped your menu and your homepage, so a term that is searched often is either very much in demand or hard to reach by browsing.

For each of your top terms, ask:

• Is it in the main navigation? If shoppers repeatedly search for something you sell in volume, give it a place in the menu or on the homepage.
• Does the search return the right products first? Run the search yourself. If your best seller for that term is halfway down the results, the product's title or description is not saying what customers say.

Service terms deserve attention too. If 'returns', 'shipping' or 'size guide' appear among your top searches, the information is too hard to find. Put it on the product page and in the footer.

What should you do about zero-result searches?

Sort each one by cause, because the three causes have three different fixes.

1. You stock it under another name. The shopper typed 'sofa' and your products say 'couch'; they typed 'trainers' and you list 'sneakers'. This is the cheapest problem to fix and a costly one to leave, since the product was there and the shopper was told it was not.
2. You do not stock it. The shopper wanted something you do not sell. That is a demand signal.
3. A typing error or an unusual spelling. The product exists and the search could not match the word.

How do you fix a naming mismatch?

Use the customer's word wherever search and shoppers will see it.

• Product titles. If customers call it one thing and you call it another, consider whether their word belongs in the title.
• Descriptions and tags. Add the alternative terms naturally in the description, so a search on either word finds the product.
• Synonyms in your search settings. Shopify's search tools let you tell the store that two words mean the same thing, which handles regional differences and common misspellings without rewriting products.
• Collection and menu names. If the menu says 'Outerwear' and customers search 'coats', the menu is using your vocabulary, not theirs.

How do you act on demand you do not stock?

Slowly, and with counts. A single search for a product you do not carry means little. The same term appearing month after month is evidence, and it comes from people already on your site.

Here is an example with made-up figures. Say that over three months 'gift box' is searched 90 times on a store that sells individual items and no boxed sets, while most other unstocked terms appear two or three times each. That term stands apart and describes something the store could assemble from products it already holds, so it is a reasonable candidate for a small test.

A sensible sequence:

1. Track unstocked terms over several months and look for the ones that repeat.
2. Test with a small order or a pre-order before committing.
3. Meanwhile, point the search at the nearest thing you do sell, so the shopper does not meet a blank page.

Search counts tell you people asked. They do not tell you what they would pay or how many would buy, so treat them as a reason to test, not a forecast.

How do you turn top searches into collections?

When a frequently searched term maps to a group of products, give that group its own collection. A search result is rebuilt each time someone searches; a collection is a permanent page you can arrange, link to and promote.

• Build the collection around the term customers use, and name it in their words.
• Add it to the navigation if the term is among your most searched.

Need-based terms make good collections: 'gifts under $50', 'travel size', a material, a season, an occasion. Once a collection attracts traffic of its own, our guide to reading the landing page report shows how to judge whether it is working.

What are the limits of search data?

It comes from a subset of visitors, and the counts are small. Only some shoppers use search, and typing a term means already having something in mind, so the terms describe intent well and browsing behaviour poorly. In an analytics app that records visits through a consent-respecting pixel, searches are captured only for visitors who allowed analytics, as our guide to cookie consent and Shopify analytics explains. Use longer date ranges and look for patterns that repeat.

Marka Metrics reports site searches alongside traffic sources, landing pages and devices, in a dashboard that only you and your team see.

A short checklist

1. Export a few months of search terms and group the variants.
2. Check that each top term returns the right products first.
3. Sort zero-result searches into mismatch, unstocked and misspelling.
4. Add customers' words to titles, descriptions and search synonyms.
5. Track unstocked terms over time before buying.
6. Turn repeated, need-based searches into collections.
7. Move frequently searched service information on to the page.

On-site search is one of the quieter reports in a store's analytics, and our guide to Shopify analytics beyond the built-in reports sets out the others worth reading. To see what your shoppers search for in a merchant-only dashboard, take a look at Marka Metrics.