Some e-commerce merchants will try just about anything to bump their conversion rates up. They might run a recurring rock-bottom price deal to inflate the numbers or push a new product line or category every couple of weeks to expand their long tail business like Amazon. Some merchants may even resort to overly harassing email bombardments in the hopes that even a few opens will turn into conversions. In the end, most of these efforts are fruitless or, at the very least, temporary.

Most online stores start off small. Maybe it’s just a few core products and some info pages, or perhaps it’s only one certain type of product. And while this might be the right way to get the ball rolling for your business, there’s going to come a time when you start to expand. Those few products become many, a couple of info pages expound into blog posts and FAQs, and your inventory begins to diversify as you look for ways to grow the business.

In 2014, the world of computing as we know it changed. This was the year that mobile computing overtook desktop browsing, pushing smartphones and tablets into clear focus as the number one way people surfed the web. Today, this remains true and in fact, mobile browsing has blown desktop computing out of the water thanks in part to annual smartphone improvements and the rise of popular tablets like the iPad.

When you ask a question, you’re looking for an answer and if you have to ask the question, it means you don’t have that answer. This might sound like circular logic, but it’s actually the concept behind search engines: designing an answer machine that helps to educate you on the questions you have to ask, no matter what form they may take. The question and answer system of your ecommerce’s on-site search function works the same way.

Words like “with,” “without” and “including” are simple enough to understand, but in the context of on-site search, they could have a critical impact on the results returned. They’re called qualifiers and if your ecommerce site isn’t equipped with a semantic search function like Celebros, it’s words like this that are going to cause you and your customers some major headaches.

Have you ever thought about the relationship between the optimized keywords you use to build your ecommerce content around and the terms and phrases your customers are typing into the on-site search box as they look for products? It’s true these might be two different things, but they’re connected in ways that only come to fruition when you have a semantic understanding of what your customers’ needs are.

Humans are flawed — we make mistakes. We forget to pick up milk on the way home from work or we accidentally lock our keys in the car when we’re in a hurry to pick up milk. And, try as we might to get through life with as few mistakes as possible, it’s in our nature to make them often.

What’s the conversion rate for your e-commerce website? According to the e-commerce industry giant Magento, the average across all online retailers is usually only about three to five percent. In fact, few retailers find themselves ever achieving higher than eight to nine percent (outside of the site search segment), even during peak sales periods.

The secret to being successful in sales is to know who you’re selling to. Being able to tailor a unique sales pitch, speak in the right tone and accentuate the right selling points can be the difference between closing a deal and losing a lead. e-Commerce managers know this better than anyone.

Retail environments are constantly changing and innovating based on emerging trends, cultivated data and customer feedback — the strive to understand your customers and meet their demands is an ongoing one. Understanding the customer means meeting their needs with ease, which can mean anything from higher checkout totals, to more frequent return purchases, to word of mouth advertising that brings in new customers.