Best practices: Promote products with search preferences

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By default, customers can search by product names and SKUs. Search preferences enable searching by product attribute values. However, enabling search preferences for a big number of attributes results in a huge list of search results. This document describes how to effectively use search preferences to promote products.

For example, there is a new camera Supracam focus which is popular on the market for its video recording properties: geotagging and autofocus. To add the product and search preferences, do the following:

  1. Create a video_recording product attribute with Geotagging and Autofocus values. For instructions, see Create product attributes.

  2. Create the Supracam focus abstract product and its variants. See Creating abstract products and product bundles.

  3. Assign the video_recording product attribute to the Supracam focus product variant. For instructions, see Assign product attributes to product variants or Assign product attributes to abstract products.

You know that customers are very interested in a device with such properties and they might search for products by them.

  1. To enable customers to search products by such Geotagging and Autofocus, define search preferences for the video_recording product attribute. Enable all search preferences for the product to appear on top of search results. For instructions, see Define search preferences.

Now customers can search by Geotagging and Autofocus and are likely to find the Supracam focus. Let’s assume that there is an existing product attribute smartphone_camera with the same values: Geotagging and Autofocus. The same search preferences are enabled for this attribute. When customers search by Geotagging and Autofocus, the Supracam focus is not always first in the search results.

To make Supracam focus appear first in the search results, you need to disable search preferences for the other product attributes with the same values.

  1. Disable the FULL TEXT BOOSTED search preference for the smartphone_camera product attribute. For instructions, see Edit search preferences.

Now Supracam focus is the only product with the video_recording attribute you’ve enabled search preferences for. When customers search for Geotagging or Autofocus, the product appears on top of the search results.