Capturing user attention, enhancing engagement, and increasing conversions all hinge on providing a seamless and personalized search experience. With its suite of powerful features, Sitecore Search enables businesses to refine their search capabilities and create outstanding user interactions.
This guide delves into the process of building impactful relevance models with Sitecore Search, covering everything from visitor context rules to A/B testing strategies.
1.- Establishing Clear Goals
Set specific, measurable, and achievable goals for your search strategy. Whether you aim to increase user engagement, boost sales, or improve content discoverability, clearly defined objectives will guide your efforts and help measure your success.
2.- Pinpoint Essential Content
Identify the content that aligns with your business goals and user preferences. It could be product pages, blog posts, landing pages, or any other type of content. Ensure that this content is well-structured and optimized for search.
3. Set Field Prioritization (Textual Relevance)
In Sitecore Search, each field in your content items has a default weight. Adjust these weights to prioritize certain fields over others. For example, you might want to give higher weightage to the product name and description fields compared to other fields.
Select the widget and variation where you want to define a strategy and its rules.
Click on + Add Rule.
Click on Settings, then Textual Relevance. Increase or decrease each individual field weight.
Save and publish your changes.
Note: If some fields are missing in the Settings/Textual Relevance section, you could need to add/enable them from the Domain Settings section.
Click on the field you want to add and check the Textual Relevance option.
4.- Establishing Strategies and Rules
One of the primary benefits of optimizing search experiences with Sitecore Search rules is the ability to deliver highly relevant search results. By analyzing user behavior, preferences, and historical data, businesses can craft rules that prioritize specific content based on individual user profiles.
a. Creating Strategies.
Select the widget and variation where you want to define a strategy and its rules.
Click on + Add Rule or select an existing rule.
You can Boost, Bury, Pin or Blacklist elements one by one from the Slots section.
Or you can also search the elements to be modified from the Search/Content Items Section and add them to the corresponding section/action:
If you want modified the relevance for multiple elements, you can create nested rules based on your 1 or more of your content attributes:
Click on Add Attribute.
Finally, you need to Save your changes and publish them.
b. Adding Visitor Context rules.
Context matters in search experiences. With Sitecore Search rules, you can define contextual rules that change search behavior based on factors such as location, device, or referral source.
For instance, “For visitors browsing from Norway, boost content under Category 1, but blacklist content under Category 2″.
Click on Context, then Visitor Context. Add Attribute.
c. Implement Conditional Boosting
Conditional boosting allows you to boost content based on specific conditions. For instance, you can boost products in a particular category during a seasonal sale or boost content based on user location. Define these conditions clearly to target the boosting effectively.
For instance, “Promote surfboards and beachwear for users visiting from warmer regions during the summer season”.
5.- Track and Evaluate
After implementing your search relevance strategy, it’s essential to monitor its performance. Use *Sitecore Search Analytics and other tracking tools to analyze user interactions with the boosted content. Pay attention to click-through rates, conversion rates, and user feedback to fine-tune your strategy over time.
6.- Continuous Optimization
Sitecore Search is dynamic, and so should be your boosting strategy. Regularly analyze user behavior, update your boosting rules, and adapt to changing trends and user preferences. Continuous optimization ensures that your search results remain relevant and valuable.