Have you ever thought about how many different ways people might search for the same thing? If you’re an eCommerce professional you probably have. There is a direct correlation between how efficiently the shopper finds the product to how quickly they’ll make a purchase. So, how accurate your search results are, is what really matters.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) will help alleviate the inevitable headaches that come from working with a traditional keyword site search engine. NLP looks at not only the content, but the intent of the request, to ensure the right results get returned the first time. What do we mean by content vs. intent? Let’s take a look at an example like “men’s hiking boots”. The sheer number of keyword combinations that your shoppers might use is enormous; here are just a few:
- Hiking Boots for Men
- Men’s boots
- Mens boots
- Men’s boots for hiking
- Male Hiking Boots
- Boots to hike men
- Masculine hiking boots
Now let’s add in attributes such as color and multiply that by the number of colors you carry (now add the synonyms of all those colors, “wheat” for example). How about price? How about size? I’m getting a headache just thinking about it:
- Hiking Boots for Men wheat
- Male wheat Hiking Boots
- Wheat Boots to hike men
- Man boots hiking wheat
- Wheat Mens boots for hiking
- Wheat Hiking Boots men
- Guys wheat hiking boots
- Male hiking wheat
- Male boots for Camping
- Mens wheat camping boots
- Gentlemans wheat hiking boots
- Masculine hiking boots wheat color
- Men’s wheat hiking boots in size 12 under $300
Now let’s think about using voice search, how many more combinations can consumers come up with verbally??? Remember, according to ComScore, by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice-driven. It seems that the list is endless;
- I’m looking for hiking boots for my boyfriend
- Do you sell men’s hiking boots
- What are the best selling men’s hiking boots
- What boots should I get for hiking
- Do you have brown hiking boots in size 12 for under $300
- I’m looking for winter hiking boots for guys in a size 10 in black or brown
My headache is getting worse, just thinking about it.
According to Steve Tutelman, the COO of Sidecar, in an article for MarTech Today, “…the ongoing development of voice search — including natural language processing and natural language understanding — is so important to the retail industry. These innovations represent a shift in marketer’s ability to understand consumer’s intent and deliver better experiences.”
With NLP search, it doesn’t matter how your customer searches. An engine like EasyAsk, understands the intent of your customer’s words and returns the right results, the first time. EasyAsk offers this technology today and we’re the only ecommerce search engine that fully supports mobile voice search.
NLP in conjunction with a suite of tools like EasyAsk’s Commerce Studio will help alleviate the inevitable headaches that come from working with a traditional keyword site search engine.
Give your customers a search experience that will delight them and give your merchandisers fewer reasons to reach for that bottle of Excedrin.