Do you want to use WordPress’s numerous Search Forms?
Adding several search forms to your site enhances user experience by allowing users to easily locate what they’re looking for.
We’ll teach you how to add numerous search forms to your WordPress site in this article.
Why Use Multiple Search Forms in WordPress?
Your visitors will be able to discover the material they’re seeking for with the aid of WordPress search forms. Improved content discoverability encourages people to spend more time on your site, resulting in increased pageviews and a lower bounce rate.
A user is also more likely to join your email list, purchase a product, or become a subscriber if they spend longer time on your site.
You make it easy for your visitors to search different regions of your website and access a search form at any moment by having several search forms on your site.
Plus, you can customize these search forms so that they show different results depending on the location. For example, you can have a sitewide search bar in your header, and create a separate product search bar so visitors can search for a product in your .
That being said, let’s show you how to create multiple search forms in WordPress, step by step.
Create a New WordPress Search Algorithm with a WordPress Plugin
Your visitors will be able to discover the material they’re seeking for with the aid of WordPress search forms. Improved content discoverability encourages people to spend more time on your site, resulting in increased pageviews and a lower bounce rate.
A user is also more likely to join your email list, purchase a product, or become a subscriber if they spend longer time on your site.
You make it easy for your visitors to search different regions of your website and access a search form at any moment by having several search forms on your site.
It’s very easy to use, gives you complete control over your WordPress search results, and lets you use multiple different search forms on your site.
Setting Up SearchWP
The first step is to download, install, and activate the plugin. See our step-by-step guide on installing a WordPress plugin for more information.
Upon activation, you need to go to Settings » SearchWP and then click on the ‘License’ menu option.
In the ‘License’ box, input your licence key and then click the ‘Activate’ button. You may access this information on the SearchWP website under your account.
After that, you need to click on the ‘Engines’ menu option.
This opens a window where you may customise your search engine settings. Consider it as if you were designing your own Google search algorithm tailored to your WordPress site and content.
Before you can develop many custom search forms with distinct results, you must first construct a sitewide search engine.
Simply click on the ‘Posts’, ‘Pages’, ‘Library’, or any custom post type drop downs to change the search engine settings.
You may then tweak the ‘Weight Multiplier’ to change how your search engine ranks that sort of information.
Simply use the sliders to place a higher importance on the title and page content than the snippet.
Once you’re done, make sure to click the ‘Save Engines’ button.
Now, it’s time to create multiple different search forms you can add to various locations across your site.
Create Multiple Different Search Forms in WordPress
SearchWP is a very flexible search plugin and makes it easy to create a variety of different types of search forms.
Here are some of the most common types of custom search forms you can create.
Creating Custom Post Type Search Forms
Custom search forms for post types are an excellent approach to assist your users in finding the most relevant material. For example, at WPBeginner, we employ custom post types to keep our glossary and deals pages separate from the rest of our content.
This sort of search form is especially typical on review websites, where you want to keep your product review articles distinct from the rest of your site’s content.
You can use SearchWP to construct custom search forms that only look for material within a given post type.
Creating Category Search Forms in WordPress
Search by category forms let your visitors search your website by specific categories. If you have a lot of content, then this can help your visitors find what they’re looking for quickly.
Instead of searching through all your articles, you’re giving your visitors control over the exact kind of content they’re looking for.
Creating Custom Page and Post Search Forms in WordPress
Your default search forms will show all of your pages, posts, and custom post types in the search results. However, there are times when you might want to stop certain pages and posts from appearing.
If you own an online business, for example, you could wish to hide your checkout, cart, thank you, and account pages.
Or, if you run a membership website, you may wish to keep your premium content and other members-only sections hidden.
Some users may even choose to hide all WordPress pages from search results.
See our step-by-step tutorial on how to exclude pages from WordPress search results for more information.
Add Multiple Search Forms to Your WordPress Site
Now that you’ve created multiple search forms, it’s time to add them to your WordPress site.
You may put search forms anywhere on the page or post, even in the centre. The most typical locations for search forms in WordPress are the menu, sidebars, and footers.
Let’s look at how to place your search forms in various locations.
Adding a Search Form to WordPress Menus
Because it’s so visible and easy to discover, nearly every successful WordPress site features a basic search form or search bar in the WordPress navigation menu.
Because this place is so well-known, many visitors are accustomed to seeing a search bar here and will begin their search here.
See our step-by-step tutorial on how to add a search bar to WordPress menus for additional information.
Adding Search Forms to WordPress Sidebars
Another common place for your search forms is your sidebar or footer.
When you create a new search algorithm with SearchWP it automatically replaces the default WordPress search, so you can easily add a search bar to your sidebar that shows these improved results.
To do so, navigate to Appearance » Widgets and select the blocks-based widget editor from the drop-down menu.
In the block editor, each widget section of your WordPress theme will have its own tab.
The sidebar widget section on the Astra theme is called ‘Main Sidebar,’ however it may have a different name depending on your theme.
Simply click the ‘Plus’ add block icon underneath the sidebar where you want to add your widget.
Then, type ‘Search’ into the search bar and click the ‘Search’ block icon.
This will automatically insert a search form into your sidebar.
You can add a title and change the text inside the search box.
When you’re finished, click the ‘Update’ button to make your search form live.
Now, you can visit your site to see your improved search form.
You can add the search block to any widget area of your site. To learn more, see our guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.
You can also create a live Ajax search form, similar to the drop down autocomplete feature common to search engines like Google.
Adding Search Forms to WordPress Posts and Pages
Then, on select articles and pages, you might wish to include a custom search box. On our specials page, for example, we have a bespoke search box that only searches for certain discounts and offers.
This may also be used for your help desk, knowledge base, FAQs, documentation, and other purposes.
Because it exclusively searches for a certain sort of material, this type of search form may be really useful to your visitors.
See our article on how to use a shortcode to insert a search form into a WordPress post for more information.
We hope you found this post useful in learning how to use multiple search forms in WordPress. You might also be interested in our guide to obtaining a free email domain and our expert recommendations for the best GoDaddy alternatives that are both cheaper and more dependable.
