Instant Search – Turn Search Into Sales vs Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN

Instant Search adds a search form to your WordPress site. Visitors see results the moment they start typing. No waiting, no page reloads. They can also search by voice: just tap the microphone and speak. Works with any theme and WooCommerce out of the box: shops, blogs, portfolios, directories. Add [instant_search] to any page, post, widget, or header to display the search form. 👉 Instant Search Pro is here. Add to Cart in search results, direct checkout, Quick View modal, zero-results rescue, conversion analytics and more. See Pro » Features Live search: results appear instantly as visitors type, no page reload Voice search: tap the microphone and speak instead of typing Five layouts: List, Grid, Compact, Big Cards, and Masonry Inline or overlay mode: show results under the search bar or in a full overlay WooCommerce ready: search products by title, content, excerpt, and SKU. Add to cart and direct checkout from search results. Show product details: price, sale badge, stock status, and star ratings right in the results Add to Cart & Buy Now: visitors can buy directly from the search dropdown Quick View: product gallery, description, and variations in a popup Wishlist & Compare: save products or compare up to 4 side by side, no extra plugins Variation selector: pick size, color, etc. right inside search results Zero-results rescue: “Did you mean?” suggestions, best-seller fallback, or a custom message Pinned results & boost rules: pin products to specific keywords, boost best-sellers, newest, or featured items Search everywhere: taxonomies, product attributes, custom fields, and ACF Synonyms & typo tolerance: “laptop” finds “notebook,” and “shooes” still finds shoes Exclude & filter: hide out-of-stock, hide parent products, restrict to logged-in users, exclude by taxonomy Recently viewed: show the visitor’s last viewed products when search is empty Search analytics: top search terms, click-through rate, cart conversions, zero-results report Searches-per-day chart: daily volume with CTR overlay for the last 30 days Weekly email report: top searches summary delivered every Monday CSV export: download all search data for external analysis Floating search button: always-visible search on every page Keyboard shortcut: Cmd/Ctrl+K opens search from anywhere Search history: shows the visitor’s recent queries Auto-focus: cursor jumps to search on page load Brand colors: tint the UI to match your brand Dark mode: Light, Dark, or Auto theme preset Open animations: smooth motion when results appear Custom CSS: full control for pixel-perfect tweaks Responsive: separate width controls for desktop, tablet, and phone Works with any theme: tested with Divi, Elementor, Rey, Astra, GeneratePress, Kadence, and block themes Self-hosted & private: no external services, no data leaves your server Voice Search for WordPress Voice search is no longer a nice-to-have. Mobile shoppers expect it, and visitors with disabilities depend on it. Instant Search is one of the only WordPress plugins that includes voice search for free. Visitors tap the microphone, speak, and see results instantly. It works on Chrome, Edge, Safari, and all modern mobile browsers. No setup, no accounts, no data leaves your server. Why Instant Search? Your default WordPress search is losing you sales. A visitor searches for something, the whole page reloads, they get a list of blue links, and half the time they just leave. Instant Search fixes that. Results appear the moment they type, with product images, prices, Add to cart, direct checkout and more. Misspell something? They still get results. Don’t want to type at all? They tap the mic and speak. Stores using live search see more products found, more pages visited, and fewer visitors bouncing from a dead-end search result. If your site has a search bar, this is what it should be doing. Contributors Marincas Marius Mugurel – www.marincas.net

Compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load automatically with the powerful Smush image optimizer to keep your WordPress site fast, without losing quality. Smush makes it easy to optimize images, compress images, and deliver images faster across your entire WordPress site. This all-in-one image optimizer automatically reduces image file sizes, enables image lazy load, and serves modern formats like WebP and AVIF, all without breaking image quality or adding extra work. Whether you’re running a blog, store, or portfolio, Smush helps you optimize images at scale and keep your site fast with a trusted WordPress image optimizer. Trusted by 1+ Million Sites | 4.8/5 Star Rating Get everything you need to optimize images and speed up your site. Smush works out of the box with no complicated setup – just install and let it handle the rest. Compress images without losing quality Reduce image file size automatically while keeping your images sharp and clear. Smush is an easy-to-use image optimizer which let’s you compress images using both lossless and lossy compression, giving you the best balance of quality and performance without extra work. You can also compress images outside the media library using Directory Smush, making it easy to optimize images stored in theme folders, plugins, or other directories on your server. Lazy load images for faster pages Enable image lazy load across your site so images load only when needed. This image optimizer improves initial page speed and creates a smoother experience for visitors without extra configuration. Serve WebP and AVIF images automatically (PRO) Convert images to WebP and AVIF and serve them automatically to supported browsers. Smush helps you optimize images using next-gen formats to reduce file size and improve load times across your WordPress site. Deliver images faster with an Image CDN (PRO) Serve images through a global image CDN to reduce latency and improve load times for visitors around the world. 119 global CDN servers Up to 500 GB of bandwidth Faster image delivery based on visitor location Improved performance for image-heavy and high-traffic sites Automatically resize and fix image dimensions (PRO) Eliminate common PageSpeed warnings and improve layout stability with automatic image sizing. Smush dynamically resizes images to perfectly fit their containers, regardless of original size, helping fix the “Properly size images” warning in Google PageSpeed Insights. It also automatically adds missing width and height attributes to your images, improving rendering speed and reducing layout shifts. This helps you meet the “Ensure images have explicit width and height” recommendation without any manual work. Optimize your entire site, automatically Smush works across your whole site as a powerful image optimizer to optimize images as you upload them and maintain performance over time without manual work. Optimize images automatically on upload Compress images in bulk or individually Works with your existing media library No need to re-upload images Enable image lazy load across your site Convert images to WebP and AVIF Deliver images with an integrated image CDN Automatically resize and serve correctly sized images Optimize images outside the media library with Directory Smush Built for performance Smush improves page speed and overall performance by reducing image weight and improving how images are delivered. Reduce page load times Improve user experience Better performance for image-heavy pages Supports image lazy load and preload images (PRO) for faster perceived performance Works with your existing setup Smush is built to work with your current WordPress setup, including popular themes, page builders, and plugins. Compatible with Gutenberg, Elementor, WPBakery, and more Works with WooCommerce stores No need to change your workflow Easy to enable and configure Designed to be simple You don’t need to be a performance expert to optimize images with Smush image optimizer. Works out of the box Simple settings when you need them No technical knowledge required Safe to use on any site Why choose Smush? There are plenty of image optimization plugins, but Smush focuses on making it easy to optimize images, compress images, and improve performance without complexity. As a leading WordPress image optimizer, Smush gives you powerful optimization tools without the technical hassle. Trusted by over 1 million WordPress users Built specifically for WordPress Regular updates and improvements Backed by the WPMU DEV team Get started in minutes Install Smush, activate it, and start to compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load right away. This easy-to-use image optimizer helps most sites see improvements immediately without changing how they upload or manage images. About Us WPMU DEV is a premium supplier of quality WordPress plugins, services and support. Learn more here: https://wpmudev.com/ Don’t forget to stay up to date on everything WordPress from the Internet’s number one resource: WPMU DEV Blog Hey, one more thing… we hope you enjoy our free offerings as much as we’ve loved making them for you! Contact and Credits Originally written by Alex Dunae at Dialect (dialect.ca, e-mail ‘alex’ at ‘dialect dot ca’), 2008-11.