People do not always use your words. A member looking for your buttercream guide might type icing or frosting. Synonyms make all of those find the same content.
Synonyms work on every search bar, Spotlight and the results page, and they take effect the moment you save.
Where to find it:
Open AiX Search, then Settings, and click the Rules button at the top. The Synonyms box is the first thing on the screen.
How to add synonyms:
- Click into the Synonyms box.
- Type one group per line, with the words separated by commas.
- Click Save Rules.
A notice confirms Search rules saved. There is no need to rebuild the index.
How synonyms work:
When a visitor types a word that is in a group, the search looks for every word in that group. Groups work in every direction: with icing, frosting, buttercream, a search for icing finds frosting pages, and a search for buttercream finds icing pages.
Matching is word by word, so put single words in a group, not phrases. Two-letter words such as gf work fine and work in both directions.
Examples from the demo site:
- gf, glutenfree, coeliac, celiac
- sourdough, levain, starter
- icing, frosting, buttercream
- biscuit, biscuits, cookie, cookies
- tin, tins, bakeware
- price, prices, pricing, plans, membership, cost
- help, support, contact
- video, videos, lesson, lessons, class, replay
The starter list:
Click Add the starter list under the box to add a ready-made set of 45 everyday groups covering media, training, pricing, support, accounts, marketing and WordPress terms. Only groups you do not already have are added, and nothing is saved until you click Save Rules, so you can delete any group that does not fit your site first.
Keep each group tight:
Every word in a group finds every other word. If you put a broad word with a narrow one, a search for the broad word also returns everything that mentions the narrow one. Words are also matched inside longer words, so a very short word such as pan would match pancake and company. Choose words that only mean the thing you want.
Where do good synonyms come from?
Open the Insights tab and look at What They Cannot Find. Every phrase there is a real search that found nothing. If you have the content under another name, a synonym fixes it in seconds. With PRO, AI Synonym Suggestions reads those searches for you. See AI Synonym Suggestions.
A real example:
Members of The Home Bakery Club kept typing icing, but the club's guide is called Smooth Buttercream In Five Minutes. The owner added icing, frosting, buttercream and saved. Now a search for icing shows the buttercream guide, the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and the Cake Decorating Course.
Tips:
- Add plural forms when they differ a lot, such as biscuit, biscuits.
- To send a search to one exact page, use a promoted result instead. See Promoted Results: Pinning A Page To The Top.
- Check the Insights tab a week later to see the change in clicks.