wordpress autocomplete search with Ajax search lite plugin

Adding a WordPress autocomplete search function to your website is a critical function. The plugin helps you to add live search suggestions and tap into Google autocomplete function. With this vital feature, sites can help to solve the query of the user and boost the user experience.

Google, Amazon, and tons of sites use similar functions to predict the user search and enhance the search experience. Other websites can leverage the functionality with the help of the WordPress autocomplete search plugin.

Ajax Search Lite is the live search plugin for WordPress and is easy to set up. Since a free version is available, many websites tend to use it. To add to it, Ajax is very flexible, allowing developers to enhance functionality. The website owners can also provide boxes to filter the results with multiple sub-categories. The plugin and the enhanced filters then become a replacement for the default search WordPress.

Adding the plugin to the website

Step 1: Choose what content to include in the search

The first thing that you’ll want to do is configure what content is eligible to be included in your search suggestions.

By default, it will search for the user’s keyword in your content’s:

• Title
• Body
• Excerpt

But you can also have it search in:

• URL slug
• Categories and tags
• Custom fields (either specific custom fields or all custom fields)

Step 2: Choose how to display content in suggestion results

By default, the plugin will reveal a lot of information in the suggestion results. It includes the:

1. Title
2. Excerpt
3. Featured image

If you want to control the image (or turn it off), go to the Image Options tab.

Step 3: Configure how the search box looks

You can replace the theme’s search box with your design; this way, the plugin’s search box design will match the existing website theme.

Step 4: Add your search box (or replace your theme’s search box)

To add the search box, the plugin gives you three options:

Plugin Options

1. Replace the theme search – with this option, the plugin will override your theme’s search functionality.
2. Shortcode – you can place the shortcode wherever you want your search form to appear.
3. PHP function – if you’re comfortable editing your theme’s code, you can use a child theme to add the search functionality directly to your theme’s template files.

Step 5: Further refine how the plugin works (optional)

If you want to improve things further, the plugin includes several settings that give you, even more, control over exactly how your WordPress live search works.

You can further tweak the autocomplete functionality and choose how the plugin treats the keywords. The resulting order can be changed based on Date and Title.

Some key advantages include:

-Since the plugin is readily available, the most efficient search engine can be added quickly.

-Critical features like search engine can enhance the user experience, hence making navigation easier for customers.