Introduction
If you run an online store using WooCommerce, you know how important it is to provide your customers with the best search functionality possible. A bad search experience can quickly frustrate potential buyers and cause them to leave your store.
Fortunately, there’s a solution to this problem: Weaviate. Weaviate is an open-source search engine that utilizes artificial intelligence to deliver highly accurate search results. By integrating Weaviate into your WooCommerce store, you can improve your search functionality and provide your customers with a better shopping experience.
In this post, we’ll explore how to use Weaviate to improve your WooCommerce store’s search functionality. We’ll also take a look at how WPSOLR can help streamline the integration process.
Using Weaviate to Improve Your Search Functionality
To get started with Weaviate, you’ll need to install and configure it on your server. Once you’ve got Weaviate up and running, you’ll need to integrate it into your WooCommerce store.
Weaviate offers a PHP client that lets you interface with the search engine from within your web application. Here’s an example of how to use the PHP client to query Weaviate:
require_once('weaviate/Weaviate.php');
$weaviate = new Weaviate('https://localhost:8080');
$query = new Weaviate\Query('Product');
$query->setQuery('red dress');
$results = $weaviate->query($query);
foreach ($results->results as $result) {
echo $result->schema->name . "\n";
}
In this example, we’re querying Weaviate for products that match the search term “red dress”. We’re then looping through the results and outputting the name of each product.
Once you’ve got the search functionality working, you can integrate it into your WooCommerce store. One way to do this is to modify your search form to send queries to Weaviate. Here’s an example of how to modify the search form template:
<form class="woocommerce-product-search" role="search" action="<?php echo esc_url( home_url( '/' ) ); ?>" method="get"><label class="screen-reader-text" for="woocommerce-product-search-field"><!--?php _e( 'Search for:', 'woocommerce' ); ?--></label><input id="woocommerce-product-search-field" class="search-field" name="weaviate_query" type="text" value="<?php echo get_search_query(); ?>" placeholder="<?php echo esc_attr_x( 'Search products…', 'placeholder', 'woocommerce' ); ?>" />
<button type="submit" value="<?php echo esc_attr_x( 'Search', 'submit button', 'woocommerce' ); ?>"><!--?php echo esc_html_x( 'Search', 'submit button', 'woocommerce' ); ?--></button>
<input name="post_type" type="hidden" value="product" />
</form>
In this example, we’ve added a hidden input field named “weaviate_query”. When the user submits the search form, their query will be sent to Weaviate instead of the default WordPress search functionality.
How WPSOLR Can Help
Integrating Weaviate into your WooCommerce store can be a complex process, especially if you’re not familiar with PHP or server administration. Fortunately, there’s a plugin that can help simplify the process: WPSOLR.
WPSOLR is a WordPress plugin that lets you integrate Weaviate into your WooCommerce store with just a few clicks. It offers a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to configure Weaviate and customize your search functionality. Some of the features offered by WPSOLR include:
– Automatic indexing of products and categories
– Customizable search templates
– Advanced query suggestions
– Integration with other search engines (e.g. Elasticsearch)
Using WPSOLR can save you a lot of time and effort when it comes to integrating Weaviate into your WooCommerce store. It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re looking to improve your search functionality.
Conclusion
Improving your WooCommerce store’s search functionality is essential if you want to provide your customers with a great shopping experience. Weaviate is a powerful search engine that can help you achieve this goal. By integrating Weaviate into your store, you can deliver highly accurate search results and make it easier for your customers to find what they’re looking for.
Remember, integrating Weaviate into your WooCommerce store can be a complex process. If you’re not familiar with PHP or server administration, consider using a plugin like WPSOLR to simplify the process. With WPSOLR, you can configure Weaviate and customize your search functionality with just a few clicks.
