9 Reasons Why Now Is an Excellent Time to Better Optimize Your Site Filters

One of the biggest advantages of online shopping for customers is the huge selection of items available. However, sorting through everything can be time-consuming, even in a digital environment. Fortunately, you can optimize your category filters and make the user experience (UX) positive.

According to Statista, retail e-commerce in the United States is a $1 billion business and grows every year. The pandemic accelerated the number of people shopping online and increased online stores. If you want to stand out, you need to optimize your site in every way possible. What better place to start than with your website filters?

Here are nine reasons why now is the best time to optimize your site filters.

1. Convert More Visitors

Increased internet traffic means more site visitors across the board. You can take advantage of anyone who starts searching through your products by enhancing your filters and making them more usable. You’ll gain a higher conversion rate when you help visitors find the exact item they’re looking for.

Source: https://www.solostove.com

Solo Stove uses icons and a simple filtering system to help you choose your next fire pit based on size and other factors. The simple filters work for the limited number of products, proving you don’t have to keep a huge inventory to categorize items effectively.

2. Outrank Competitors

More people opened new businesses in the last couple of years to meet the rising demands of online shopping. If you want to do better than the competition, you have to make the experience as easy and intuitive as possible.

Pay attention to what others in your niche do for their filtering and sorting options. Is there anything they could improve? What can you do that’s better or offers a little more?

3. Weed Out Non-Buyers

Every person who visits your site uses up resources in some way. You pay for additional bandwidth, or your website slows down or even crashes during high traffic moments. That’s why it’s vital to weed out people who will never buy from you.

When you add the option to filter down to exactly what the user wants, they can quickly see if you have what they’re looking for. If not, they can simply move on to a different online vendor that does.

4. Utilize Images

Now is a great time to add images to your categories as a quick filtering method. Internet speeds and screen resolutions are faster and higher than ever before. Now is an excellent time to better optimize your filters by adding pictures. You won’t have to worry about site visitors bouncing away because photos don’t load or the site freezes up.

Source: https://www.powerpak.net/buy-online/personal-protective-equipment.html

PowerPak does a great job of using photos to showcase each category. The images aren’t tiny but are large enough for the user to see at a glance. The site offers further filtering options based on size and other factors in a sidebar on the left.

5. Consider the Order

There are many different ways you can order your filtering options. Make sure you go with the most intuitive setup possible. Now is an excellent time to reorder your site filters because there is so much data available about your users. Look at heatmaps of your site to see which things visitors spend the most time on.

Put yourself in the shoes of the average customer. What things might they filter by first? For example, will they initially focus on color or size if looking for clothing?

6. Hide Unneeded Filters

Not all filters will apply to all the products you carry. Hide the ones that aren’t necessary. People may be looking for a better shopping experience, so enhancing how your filters work and paying attention to the results of each type of product can make a huge difference in your conversion rates.

7. Embrace Augmented Reality (AR)

AR is growing by leaps and bounds, so using it within your filtering process enhances the UX of your online store. You can show users how an item might look in their living room, on their finger or being worn.

Source: https://www.zennioptical.com/p/browline-eyeglass-frames/1954

Zenni Optical offers a “try on” feature for most of its glasses. You can use the app or desktop site and a camera to see how different frames might look on your face. The VR becomes a sort of filter to find which styles fit you best.

8. Speed up Your Site

Now is an excellent time to speed up search results. If your server can’t do this quickly, it might be time to invest in a dedicated plan. Users expect almost instant results whenever they browse your site. Google even ranks based on how fast your site performs. Look for script errors or issues with results not loading quickly enough.

Make sure to optimize any images on results pages so the site loads instantly.

9. Add a Search Box

Make your search box easy to find. Put yourself in the shoes of the average customer. They’re faced with thousands of choices and tons of advertising every day. Make sure your results pull up exact terms your customers are most likely to seek. You may even want to offer a popular feature items box.

Improve Your Site Filters

Take the time to improve your site filters and higher conversion rates will follow. Some extra attention to detail can make a huge difference in your site’s UX, whether you make filters easier to find, remove some of the categories or nix things that aren’t working.