How to Build an Advanced Search Form in WordPress

If you want to build an advanced search method in WordPress for custom post types, you can offer your customers a better website experience by having a search form that involves your custom post types in the outcomes.

In this write-up, we’ll show you how to build an advanced search method for custom post types in WordPress, so follow the steps given below:

 

Why build an Advanced Search Form for Custom Post Types in WordPress?

If you have various types of content, then a custom-post type search engine lets you quickly help your customers find the most relatable content. For instance, we utilize custom post types here at WPBeginner to place our deals in order and arrange the glossary sections. This keeps them different from the rest of the content on your website.

If we were to have a custom post type search method or form for each of these web pages, then the outcomes will only show posts from that specific genre.

This type of custom search helps your viewers visit more pages and stay on your website longer, which gives off good WordPress SEO signals like lesser bounce rate and higher dwell time.

With that said, let’s give you a tour of building an advanced search form for habit post types in WordPress.

 

Build a New WordPress Search Algo with a WordPress Plugin

The simplest way to build an advanced search form for custom posts types is by utilizing the SearchWP plugin. It’s the most recommended search plugin for WordPress used by over 30,000 websites. It’s simple to use and gives you complete control over your WordPress search results.

Follow these steps:

  • Firstly, install and activate the plugin.
  • after activation, you have to go to Settings, then to SearchWP, and press on the ‘License’ menu option.
  • Click on Activate button after entering your license key in the ‘License’ box. (You can also find this data in your account on the SearchWP site.)
  • Once you’ve finished all these, you have to click on the ‘Engines’ menu bar.
  • Then automatically, you will be taken to a screen where you can change your search engine settings. Think of it as making your own Google search algorithm for your site.

 

But at first, with the help of SearchWP, you need to build a site-wide search engine before making a custom-post types search engine.

You can easily change the search engine settings by pressing on the ‘Posts,’ ‘Pages,’ ‘Media,’ ‘Library,’ or other custom post type settings or dropdowns. Each part has a ‘Weight Multiplier’ that will adjust how the search engines organize the contents. If you need the search engine to use page titles more than the content, adjust the slider according to it.

Once you’re done customizing your default search engine dropdowns, be sure about the ‘Save Engines’ button to make your first search engine. Now that your first search engine is set up, it’s time to build a high-tech search form for your custom post types.

 

Create a High-tech Search Form Limited to a Single Custom Post Type

To build a custom search box, we’ll start by creating a separate search engine that only aims at the custom post types you need.

 

Follow these steps to add an advanced search form:

  • First, steer to Setting, go to SearchWP and press the ‘Add New’ button. This will automatically add a new, separate search engine.
  • Next, press on the ‘Sources & Settings’ button.
  • This will show you a popup page where you can choose the sources for your search engine form. Uncheck the square boxes of the settings you don’t want to include. For instance, we can only mark the ‘Coupons’ box checked if we want to build a search form that only allows the users to search through our coupon webpages. You also have to give your search engine a title. Take note of the title in the ‘Engine Name’ box, as you’ll need it at a later step.
  • Press the ‘Done button. Once you have finished this, press the ‘Save Engines’ button to reserve your new search engine form.

You have to install the SearchWP shortcodes extension to add your new custom post search engine to WordPress.

First, head to the shortcodes extension site and click on the ‘Download available with active license’ option. After that, you will have to download and activate the extension exactly like you downloaded the plugin above.

 

Now, you can make a new custom post search engine page utilizing shortcodes. Steer to Pages. Go to Add New and give your page a title. Click on the icon ‘Add Block’ to bring up the block’s menu bar. Write HTML on the search bar and select the ‘Custom HTML’ block. Now you can easily add the shortcodes and HTML you want for your page.

 

Finally

SearchWP is a very efficient and customizable search plugin. You can also utilize this plugin to add live Ajax search, build a search engine with different features, and more. If you face any type of difficulty regarding creating a custom post type, then our website has everything you need. You can easily find us on Twitter and Facebook. We hope this article helped you know how to build an advanced search form in WordPress for custom post forms.