Findability is a rather pretentious sounding word. Regardless, there is nothing else in the English language that quite explains what it means, so it is now part of our lexicon.
findability, (n.)
The ease with which information contained on a website can be found, both from outside the website (using search engines and the like) and by users already on the website.
What you need to do
Cutting directly to the chase, these are the things you need to do. The links will jump you down the page for more detail.
- Make your navigation navigable
- Make searching simple
- Allow people to drill down via filters & sorting
- Collections & PDPs
- Contextual and intuitive internal linking
- AI & Personalisation
- Don't (ever) forget mobile
If customers can’t easily find what they’re looking for, they’ll leave — and likely never return. This is where findability comes in.
Why you need to do this
Findability is all about creating a frictionless experience, guiding visitors from entry point to checkout with minimal effort.
This article covers what it means, how it can be implemented, and includes some actionable strategies to improve it, with practical tips for both small and large catalog businesses.
Findability is a mix of design, structure, and technology that allows users to quickly discover products or information. It overlaps with usability but is more focused on the ease of locating items rather than overall site experience.
Strong findability should result in:
- Faster product discovery.
- Higher conversion rates.
- Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Core Elements of Findability
Several factors influence your store's findability, including navigation design, search functionality, filters, sorting and clear product naming & descriptions.
Your menus and category hierarchies should - of course - be intuitive and consistent.
You should have a robust site search that can handle misspellings, synonyms, and partial matches.
You should have tools in place that allow customers to narrow down large selections of products quickly and intuitively.
Your products should be labeled using terms customers actually use and in all the right places including titles, descriptions and meta information.
Catalog Size Considerations
Smaller Catalogs
If you have fewer than ~100 products you should typically be focusing on simplicity and storytelling.
Avoid an overly deep navigation structure and ensure that each product stands out without overwhelming visitors.
If you use a shallow navigation (one to two levels deep) and highlight featured or best-selling items on the homepage you'll be providing your visitors with a strong degree of findability.
By using cross-sells and upsells to guide users to related products you'll also be further strengthening your findability - contextually.
Larger Catalogs
For hundreds and thousands of products, you will be facing struggles with choice overwhelm. You may also find the structuring of categories and subcategories effectively to be quite difficult.
Larger product catalogs warrant investing in powerful on-site search. At a bare minimum, you should have Shopify's free search & discovery app installed and configured. Beyond that there are various, mature options like Searchanise and Algolia, both of which will significantly improve your search functionality and features.
Using advanced filtering (by size, color, brand, price, etc.) is imperative for larger catalogs.
You need to create curated collections and landing pages for specific segments or needs. Examples of these could be gender and age segmentation, different departments or uses.
How to do this
1. Improve Your Navigation Design
Quick tips for all businesses:
Keep your top-level navigation limited to 5–7 main categories.
Use descriptive, customer-friendly category names ("Summer Dresses" vs "Apparel").
Implement sticky navigation to keep menus visible as users scroll.
Quick tips for businesses with larger catalogs:
Add mega menus to reveal subcategories clearly.
Billingham Bags make excellent use of a mega navigation feature where all of their top level categories are always front-and-center and the customer can drill down to their preferred size, or look at their flagship models in that category.
Use visual elements like icons or images to help guide your visitor's choices.
Foldabox include contextual cross-sells directly below the buy box on the product detail page.
2. Beef Up On-Site Search
Search is critical for conversion, especially on larger sites.
Autocomplete and suggesting popular queries as users type is a baseline expectation nowadays.
Implementing some fuzzy logic error tolerance where your customer types "bloo jeens" in, your store should be suggesting blue jeans, not returning a "Nothing found" message.
Fuzzy logic (n.)
In e-commerce search, fuzzy logic refers to a method that handles inexact or misspelled queries by interpreting user intent and returning relevant results, even when the input is not an exact match.
Not displaying rich results, such as product images and prices, directly in the search dropdown is doing a disservice to your business.
You should also analyze your search logs regularly to find gaps and improve synonyms.
3. Provide Filters and Sorting
Filters help your customers zero in on what matters to them.
Larger product catalogs
For large catalogs you're going to need to provide multi-select filters (e.g., selecting multiple colors or brands).
Allow your customers to specify price and size ranges so they're always refining their search down to the products that apply to them.
Smaller product catalogs
KISS - Give your visitors only one to three primary filters. This avoids clutter and allows you to guide their journey toward the products they're after. A good example of a strong combination of filters would be Size, Color and Use.
Also, always include sorting options (price low to high, best selling, newest) to give the prospect control over the metrics that are important to them.
4. Optimize Category and Product Pages
Customers often land directly on product or collection pages from search engines or other sources of traffic like social media and now also from AI.
Headers & Content
You're going to want to ensure that these pages have descriptive headers and introductory text with relevant keywords.
Guide Your Customers
Where possible include featured products at the top. "Staff picks" or "best sellers" help guide your customers to flagship / preferred products.
Breadcrumb navigation is also a great way of communicating to the visitor about where they are.
On your product pages you need to write clear, keyword-rich titles, use high-quality images and videos and provide clear CTAs (calls to action) to add to cart or explore related products.
5. Improve Internal Linking
Internal linking helps guide customers to related products and boosts your store's SEO.
Adding Contextuality
By adding "Related Products" and "Customers Also Bought" sections in relevant locations you're guiding customers to items they may not have found or even been aware of
Linking blog posts or guides to products directly like "Shop this look" and contextually relevant links in the copy will further enhance the customer's likelihood of finding what they want.
All Roads Lead To Rome
Feature seasonal or trending collections on various pages so no matter where your customers land, all roads lead to Rome.
6. Leverage AI and Personalization
For larger or more advanced businesses with more budget and resources, personalization can dramatically improve your store's findability.
Personalized product recommendations based on browsing and purchase history can go a long way to focusing in on that individual. Their experience will be more tailored and the chances of them finding the product they may not even know exists is higher.
Placing dynamic content blocks on the homepage and collections showing recently viewed items will allow shoppers to quickly return to those product
These types of enhancements require a larger investment but can pay off in higher engagement and repeat purchases.
7. Streamline Mobile Findability
Mobile shoppers tend to have even less patience than their desktop browsing brethren.
Some important tactics to ensure you're catering for your mobile visitors include using a prominent search bar at the top, simplifying menus and avoiding complex hover interactions.
Ensuring that filters and sort tools are easy to access and collapse neatly will also go a long way to improving the overall user experience of the store on a mobile device and will also increase product findability.
Measuring and Iterating
Improving findability shouldn't be seen as a one-time effort.
Search Usage Data
You should continuously analyze your search usage data (queries, no-result rates etc.) so can address issues that your customers are experiencing in search.
Click-Through Rates
Your click-through rates on navigation and filter elements will tell you what is working, what isn't and what you should be looking to change, add, move or remove.
Exit Rates
Keeping an eye on exit rates on collections and product pages allows you to target those that are performing badly and implement measures to keep the visitor browsing for the right product for them.
Conversion Rates Of Different Paths
Your conversion rates for different paths to purchase are also an invaluable metric to check. This will allow you to refine, replace, remove or double down on these paths to ensure that customers are being offered the full extent of what is possible on your shop.
Use these insights to test and refine your structure, search logic, and content.
Conclusion
Findability is a vital yet often overlooked factor in ecommerce success. Whether you run a small boutique with a tight collection or a large multi-brand store with thousands of SKUs, investing in findability improves customer satisfaction, shortens time to purchase, and increases sales.
For small catalogs, focus on simplicity and guided journeys. For large catalogs, invest in powerful search, advanced filtering, and personalization.
By approaching findability as an ongoing strategic priority — rather than a one-time setup — you’ll create an ecommerce experience that not only attracts but also converts and retains customers.
Photo by Ali Kazal