How On-Site Search Impacts SEO for E-commerce: Trends in 2024–2025

On-site search has long been an integral part of most e-commerce platforms. However, its importance extends far beyond user experience—it's becoming a key pillar of modern SEO strategies. In recent years, especially during 2024–2025, this direction has been evolving rapidly. Below, we’ll explore how on-site search influences SEO, provide benchmarks and examples, and explain how we at Nibelung implement these approaches in practice.

1. On-site search queries as a source of SEO insights

According to Search Engine Watch, on-site search is now one of the most valuable sources for understanding user intent. Unlike traditional SEO data, these queries reflect the behavior of your actual website audience.

Practical applications:
- Enrich your semantic core using internal search data.
- Create blog posts, Q&A, and product cards based on popular queries.

Benchmark: A study by Inflow found that companies analyzing their on-site search regularly saw a 12–18% increase in organic traffic within 6 months.

2. Automatic generation of SEO pages based on filters and categories

Agital emphasizes the importance of using internal queries to generate landing pages tailored to long-tail search terms—areas with less competition and higher conversion rates.

Examples:
- “merino wool socks under €20” — filtered pages optimized for this specific query.
- “17-inch waterproof laptop backpacks” — dynamically generated pages with SEO titles and descriptions.

Benchmark: On Shopify-based stores, implementing SEO-friendly filtered pages increased page depth by 25% and organic traffic by 22% in one quarter.

3. Optimizing site structure using on-site search behavior

Users often turn to internal search when they can’t find something through navigation. This indicates potential flaws in your site structure.

Recommendations:
- Add new categories based on search trends.
- Rework navigation if certain categories are frequently searched manually.
- Use internal search click-through rates as a metric for structure relevance.

Benchmark: A Baymard Institute study revealed that e-commerce sites that aligned their navigation with search patterns reduced bounce rates by 11% and increased conversions by 6–9%.

4. Preparing for Generative Search (SGE, ChatGPT, etc.)

With the rise of generative search engines like Google SGE and AI-powered Bing, it’s no longer enough to have content—it needs to be structured and AI-friendly.

Impact of on-site search:
- Helps identify frequently asked questions (FAQs).
- Indicates what to structure using Schema.org or JSON-LD.
- Highlights topics to address in product and category pages.

Benchmark: BrightEdge reports that websites optimized for generative search receive up to 27% more organic traffic from AI-integrated search engines.

5. Implementation recommendations

For marketing and content teams:
- Regularly export and analyze internal search data.
- Create landing pages and blogs based on frequent queries.
- Optimize content based on post-search user behavior.

For product and engineering teams:
- Ensure filter pages are indexable with unique URLs, meta tags, and structured data.
- Improve on-site search quality: relevance, synonyms, spelling correction.
- Integrate search analytics into your BI tools.

Summary

On-site search is more than just a UX tool—it’s a strategic asset that enables:
- Creation of high-quality SEO content;
- Optimization of navigation and site architecture;
- Readiness for the future of AI-driven search.

At Nibelung.ai, we closely monitor these trends and use our technology not only to boost conversions but also to drive deep SEO optimization. Our system extracts valuable user behavior data, automates the creation of relevant content, and increases your e-commerce visibility in search engines.