If you’re looking for the best WordPress search plugin for your website, you’ve probably noticed that the default feature isn’t ideal. Its search functionality simply does not meet the standards you require to provide a positive experience to your audience.
One of the reasons we like WordPress so much is that we can always find amazing plugins to use. When it comes to flexible search plugins, the WordPress ecosystem stands head and shoulders above the competition.
In this article, we’ll look at why having an advanced search plugin on your website might be a smart idea. We’ll also go over some of our best WordPress Search plugins so you can determine which one is right for your website.
What Are WordPress Search Plugins and Why Do You Need Them?
If you’re just getting started with a blog or website, the need for robust search functionality may not be obvious. However, as your website’s traffic and content grow, having advanced on-site search capabilities becomes crucial.
WordPress includes a search feature right out of the box. However, it only offers basic functionality and, to be honest, it’s pretty bad at retrieving relevant content.
Perhaps you’re asking why having a good search feature is so important. As your website grows in content, you want your users to be able to easily find articles or products.
When your site is easy to do on-site searches, your visitors are more likely to stay on your website. That also means that they are more likely to consume your content, buy something, and come back for more later. In other words, they have a higher chance of converting. Google loves that.
In addition, the more people you have conducting searches on your website, the more data you will be able to collect. Data is like gold in today’s digital age because it provides insights into your customers’ behaviors and needs. This will allow you to make more informed decisions about your business, marketing, and SEO strategies.
Let’s look at some of the benefits that a search function upgrade can offer your website.
The Benefits of Upgrading Your Search Functionality
A search plugin extends and improves the native WordPress search system by adding new capabilities and allowing for more flexibility. In exchange, it offers faster and more accurate results, as well as additional benefits such as:
- Easy-to-access content: Search plugins can conduct in-depth searches that include custom fields and post types. This can help your content become more visible and searchable.
- A more intuitive navigation system: As the saying goes, content is king, but it’s not going to do you any good if your users have a hard time accessing it. If your site has a lot of text, such as a blog, knowledge base, or even a photo gallery, a search tool will help your visitors find what they’re looking for.
- Analysis of visitor behavior and preferences: Most WordPress search plugins include search logs with data and search analytics. This can provide crucial information about which content or product is in high demand.
So, without further ado, here are some of our favorite free and paid WordPress Search plugin options.
Best Free WordPress Search Plugins
- SearchWP Ajax Live: The SearchWP Ajax Live plugin is 100% free and is all-around awesome. The plugin is an extension for SearchWP. However, don’t let that deter you; it works with any WordPress search form that displays the search form using the built-in WordPress template tags.
The SearchWP Ajax Live plugin improves your existing WordPress search by displaying live Ajax search results as soon as the user begins typing. This provides a better user experience and eliminates the need for a page reload.
The plugin also has a flexible customization option for advanced users. They can alter the results template and add Ajax capabilities to any search form.
- Relevanssi: A strong 4.5-star rating on WordPress and a whopping 100k+ user base make the Relevanssi plugin a strong addition to your WordPress website. Relevannsi’s extensive search functionality and extensive filtering options give you complete control and access to your search results.
As you probably guessed, search results are based on relevance rather than date. It highlights the search phrases and provides “Did you mean?” search suggestions, making it easier for your website users to find content.
Users can search through all WordPress post types, including comments, tags, categories, and custom fields. The cool thing about this plugin is that it lets you only show results from specific categories.
If you need to find photos, portfolios, or other image-centered sites, Relevanssi allows you to search images by title or description.
The makers of the Relevanssi plugin made it a point to educate their users on how to make the most of this plugin. They have an extensive knowledge base where you can get all the information you need to get started. They also provide a premium version for $99 for an annual license that includes additional features and functions.
- WP Google Search: WP Google Search offers excellent search capabilities from the mighty Google itself. And all for free! It counts with a user base of over 10k people, but we expect this number to grow quickly over time.
Users can add a Google Search function to their WordPress site by registering a new Programmable Search Engine. Then, on the plugin settings page, paste the generated search engine ID.
A unique feature of this plugin is that you can use it on a collection of websites. It’ll pull information from the Google search engine and display it on your WordPress website.
However, when it comes to adding customizations, WP Google Search does limit your options. You’ll get a custom shortcode to display the search widget on any widget area or to place the search from anywhere on your site.
The majority of the customization options are instead found on Google’s Custom Search Engine admin page. You can change the look and feel of the search results in the Look and Feel area.
Best Premium WordPress Search Plugins
- SearchWP: If you’re looking for a plugin that makes you feel like it was money well spent, then look no further than SearchWP. It is hands-down one of the best custom search plugins you’ll find for WordPress. It’s incredibly simple to use, and the search results are more accurate.
One of our favorite features is that once you activate the SearchWP plugin, it will automatically index your content and replace your default WordPress search feature.
SearchWP allows your website visitors to look for content in Custom Fields, Ecommerce Product Details, Categories, Tags, uploaded documents, and even Custom database table content.
SearchWP is a WordPress plugin that is powerful, user-friendly, and reasonably priced. It also includes one-click functionality for creating custom WordPress search engines that outperform any other plugin on the market.
This plugin costs $99 per year, and is oh so worth it!
- ElasticPress: ElasticPress runs search queries on the cloud rather than on your WordPress site. This enables it to produce results at breakneck speed. It is extremely simple to use and integrate on any WordPress site, and it is compatible with all leading WordPress hosting providers.
ElasticPress features an Ajax search built-in that returns results as soon as the user starts typing. It also works nicely with WooCommerce, allowing users to find the products they want much faster.
ElasticPress includes some useful extras, such as the ability to query posts in a Multisite installation from another Blog. You can host your own Elasticsearch server without fear of interfering with the plugin’s functionality.
This plugin not only simplifies the integration of Elasticsearch into WordPress, but it also includes a plethora of extensibility and development options (including WP-CLI support, which is excellent). It’s the only and most effective way to integrate Elasticsearch with WordPress! Just ask any of the over 7k happy users (and counting).
Grab this great plugin for $79 per month.
- Ivory Search: With over 50k downloads and a solid 5-star rating, Ivory Search is the search plugin to use if you want a no-hassle solution. Ivory Search is a freemium search plugin that allows you to create and customize an unlimited number of search forms.
Ivory allows you to use shortcodes to easily insert search forms wherever you want on your website. This includes the header, sidebar, footer, and other widget areas on your site.
You can also change how many posts are displayed and whether they are displayed in ascending or descending order. Ivory Search also integrates well with other popular WordPress plugins such as bbPress and WooCommerce.
This plugin’s premium version costs $19.99 per year. It allows you to enable or disable search results based on specific authors, post statuses, and comment count. If you have a WooCommerce store, Ivory lets you search products by SKU when you upgrade to the Pro Plus plan for $49.99/year.
Final Words: Best WordPress Search Plugins
We hope you found this article useful in your hunt for the best WordPress search plugin for your website. Get in touch with us today if you’d like to learn more about our WordPress web design services.
