Give search results the same filter sidebar as a category page
A broad query returns hundreds of items with the full category filter sidebar already available, restating the query and count as a heading instead of dumping an undifferentiated list.
What it is
The search-results page carries the exact same filter sidebar a category page would, plus a heading restating the query and total count, rather than a stripped-down results template with no way to narrow a broad match.
Why it works
A broad, single-word query is really a request for a whole category, not one product, and a results page with no filters forces the shopper to scroll through everything to narrow it down manually, exactly the problem filters solve on a category page. Reusing the same filter set on search results means a shopper never loses narrowing power just because they arrived through the search box instead of the navigation menu.
How to test it
- Hypothesis
- Adding the full category filter sidebar to search-results pages will lift add-to-cart rate on broad-query searches, because shoppers can narrow a large result set the same way they would on a category page instead of scrolling through it unfiltered.
- Primary metric
- Add-to-cart rate (search sessions with 100+ results)
- Guardrail metric
- Search-results page load time, since resolving facet options and counts against a filtered result set adds computation the plain template didn't need
Related ideas
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