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WooCommerce Advanced Ajax Product Filters: The 10 Best Plugins

Danielle Di-Tommaso
April 25, 2022
Acsell product filters designer

If you want to offer your customers the best shopping experience possible, you’ll want to employ some User Interface (UI) functionality that helps them. Advanced Ajax product filters are one of the best ways to help your users and net more conversions.

Filtering your products can show the user the exact product they require, fast. What’s more, you can add filters for all sorts of attributes and product categories. With the right system in place, a user will find the product they need from your entire stock, without your input. From there, they will be able to make a purchase, and send that money your way.

For this tutorial, we’re going to talk about advanced Ajax product filters for WooCommerce. It will dive into some of the best plugins on the market, and showcase our top pick.

What WooCommerce Product Filters Are and Why They’re Important

Product filters are almost a necessity for any online shop. Including this functionality within your WooCommerce store can give users more scope to find the product they need in a number of ways:

  • A filter can sort through multiple products at one – your entire stock if necessary – using myriad criteria. For example, you can set up color filters, size, price, brand, and almost any other attribute you desire.
  • You put the power into the visitor’s hands. With this key tool, they can self-serve their needs, and turn from a browser into a paying customer.
  • The typical UI means that you’ll carry out your search on one screen – often within the store’s product list. It’s fast, simple to use, and the improved navigation and overall experience can drive your cart abandonment rate down.

If your store sells lots of products, but you still want to give the visitor a defined choice, advanced Ajax product filters are going to be the way you implement it.

The Problem With WooCommerce Product Filters

However, product filters won’t always be the panacea your store needs. If the implementation isn’t good enough, you could hurt your prospects of earning more sales.

WooCommerce’s own product filters serve a purpose, but they aren’t ideal. Here’s why:

  • Unlike WordPress itself, you might need some technical knowledge or coding skills to implement product filters for WooCommerce.
  • You may not have the same flexibility as a custom-coded solution.
  • WooCommerce’s product filters might not be as performant as something you can code yourself. This is because the native option looks to add the functionality as a priority. In contrast, you’ll focus on speed and performance – the primary considerations an advanced Ajax product filter needs.

However, you don’t need to dig out your coding manuals and courses. There is a rich WordPress plugin ecosystem, and this offers a number of advanced Ajax product filter plugins to choose from.

We’re going to look at some of these later. Before though, let’s quickly go over what Ajax filters (and the advanced kind) are, and how they relate to the User Experience (UX).

What Ajax Filters Are (And the Benefits)

An in-depth answer to the question of What are Ajax filters? needs some technical knowledge, and at least passing familiarity with how a website works. However, we can give a short summary that can suffice.

When you do anything on a web page, the typical way it will change is through reloading it, just as you would within your browser. If you think of a product filter, you’ll select the relevant search attributes, and click a dedicated filter button. Without Ajax, this action would refresh the page and update your filter:

Selecting attributes within a product filter.

With Ajax, the site will use asynchronous code to carry out the request without the need for a page refresh. This is going to boost the performance – specifically the speed – of your site. The responsiveness of your UI will also benefit, as a visitor will see near-instant feedback on their selections.

What Advanced Ajax Product Filters Are

When it comes to advanced Ajax product filters, the user stands to benefit to a greater extent. In this case, a filter will still use Ajax to keep page reloads to a minimum. However, all of the filtering happens within the browser itself – what’s known as ‘client-side’ as opposed to ‘server-side’. This negates the need for a page refresh, which has even greater performance benefits.

What’s more, advanced Ajax product filters will work with greater efficiency based on higher numbers of traffic. This is because the server will create a temporary cache of the page in question for each user who makes a request.

Advanced Ajax product filters are a key element for a high-performing WooCommerce shop that holds thousands of products. It’s going to heighten performance and increase the overall UX of your site – both essential for more sales and happier customers.

The Top 10 WooCommerce Ajax Product Filter Plugins

Next up, we’re going to showcase a number of different plugins, extensions, and add-ons that can offer advanced Ajax product filters for WooCommerce.

While the list isn’t in any particular order for the most part, we do want to start with our number one pick. Let’s take a look at it.

1. Acsell Product Filters

Acsell Product Filters is the definition of an advanced Ajax product filter plugin for WooCommerce. It provides instant results and a fast experience for every user – without page refreshes.

The Acsell Product Filters plugin.

You’ll create your filters using a drag-and-drop interface – no coding required. This means you don’t need HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, or any other technical chops. What’s more, you can customize those filters using the WordPress admin screen’s options.

For example, you can add drop-down menus, custom icons, color that matches your branding, and much more. You’ll also get functionality such as conditional logic, which gives you the opportunity to create complex and specific filters that help the user find the products they need.

2. YITH WooCommerce Ajax Product Filter

The YITH WooCommerce Ajax Product Filter plugin is a popular solution that lets you filter based on a number of attributes. Brand, color, size, product category, price filters, and many more options are available.

The YITH WooCommerce Ajax Product Filter plugin.

YITH’s plugin lets you create filter group templates – called ‘presets’ – that act much like Acsell’s system, but with arguably less flexibility. However, there is a lot of flexibility in how you display your product filters.

For example, you can use a shortcode, widget, Block, or Elementor module to display your filters almost anywhere on your site. What’s more, you can define how each preset displays on a case-by-case basis – perfect if you have specific requirements for a unique site design.

3. JetSmartFilters plugin by Crockoblock

We think that the JetSmartFilters plugin is one of the more user-friendly on this list. It’s Ajax-based, which means it’s smooth to use on the front- and back-ends, and keeps page refreshes to an absolute minimum.

The JetSmartFilters plugin.

The plugin offers you a quick setup time – vital if you need to serve customers fast. Also, you won’t need coding skills or technical knowledge to use its full feature set.

JetSmartFilters provides a number of different widget options for the Block Editor and Elementor to help you implement lots of different filter types. For example, you can choose visual filters, radio buttons, checkboxes, product search functionality, and many more.

4. Advanced AJAX Product Filters

This free plugin provides a simple upgrade to the native WooCommerce product filter options. If you want something straightforward that delivers on quality, the Advanced AJAX Product Filters plugin could be for you.

The Advanced AJAX Product Filters plugin.

You get to implement as many filters as you need with this plugin, and there are a number of category options for your filter. You can choose from product attributes, custom taxonomies, price, and others.

There are also a number of styles and customization options to choose from. As such, you get a good all-around feature set from this plugin, wrapped in a straightforward interface.

5. WOOF WooCommerce Products Filter

The WOOF WooCommerce Products Filter plugin offers a lot of functionality that you can display in a number of ways – whether that’s using a shortcode or widget. It also offers access to its Application Programming Interface (API) to help a developer create custom and unique extensions.

The WOOF WooCommerce Product Filters plugin.

However, you don’t need technical wizardry to implement any of the plugin’s feature sets. There are a number of ways to set up the filter to offer options such as taxonomies, colors, attributes, size, price filters, and more. A premium upgrade also lets you add further filter options such as SKUs, images, and many more.

6. Product Filter for WooCommerce

The aptly named Product Filter for WooCommerce does what it says on the tin. It’s a premium plugin that lets you set up almost unlimited filters, and customize them to your needs.

The Product Filter for WooCommerce plugin.

Because the plugin uses shortcodes to display filters, it will work with any WooCommerce store. Also, you have a number of styles and filter types to choose from, along with support product variations.

The plugin also provides a number of advanced features, such as smart analytics, adaptive filtering, and more. It’s a feature-packed plugin that can be a good addition to your shop.

7. Themify – WooCommerce Product Filter

The WooCommerce Product Filter plugin from Themify ticks almost all of the boxes you need in a good advanced Ajax product filter plugin. It lets you create filters from a number of different attributes, along with full customization of the way they look.

The Themify – WooCommerce Product Filter plugin.

You can choose options such as taxonomies, price range sliders, product tags, and more for your filters. In addition, page reloads are kept to a minimum.

You’ll create filters that align with your search optimization strategy using a drag-and-drop interface within the WordPress admin screen. This familiar interface is user-friendly, and what’s more, won’t require you to have coding or technical knowledge.

8. Ajax-Enabled Enhanced Layered Navigation

If your store offers a lot of variable products, the Ajax-Enabled Enhanced Layered Navigation plugin might suit your e-commerce shop. Similarly, if you have knowledge of WordPress’ back-end, the plugin will likely end up on your shortlist.

The Ajax-Enabled Enhanced Layered Navigation plugin.

You’ll use the plugin to work with back-end information to decide how to display selected filters on the front end. Also, the plugin will preserve attribute links, so your shop pages offer optimization for search engines.

You can customize the filter to display as color swatches, label selectors, drop-down menus, and more. In contrast, you have a less flexible scope for individual filters, as you can only assign attributes to values.

9. Ultimate WooCommerce Filters

The Ultimate WooCommerce Filters plugin looks good, comes with a good set of features and product options, and provides a quick way to set up your product filters.

The Ultimate WooCommerce Filters plugin.

You’ll add it to your site using either a shortcode or filter widget, and you have full control over how the filter looks and operates. For example, you can customize colors and layouts for each filter you use, and can display the values you set below product thumbnails.

10. Premmerce WooCommerce Product Filter

The Premmerce WooCommerce Product Filters plugin looks to keep your shop’s performance high. You can implement all of your filters through a single widget area, and the plugin uses a custom caching system to further benefit your loading speeds.

The Premmerce WooCommerce Product Filter plugin.

Along with a typical set of features and functionality for creating product filters, this plugin also helps you implement optimization for search engines. It does this through indexing restrictions for empty filter pages and results.

Also, you have pre-loading for the filter itself, which helps to keep users on-site while it loads. Overall, you have a solid plugin that aims to reduce your cart abandonment rate.

Why Acsell Is the Number One Advanced Ajax Product Filter Plugin for WooCommerce

There are a lot of plugins that can help you implement advanced Ajax product filters for WooCommerce. However, there is only one we’ll recommend. Acsell is the best solution on the market that lets users create custom product filters.

The plugin will work with specific product information, such as model numbers, IDs, and general attributes. What’s more, it comes with a whole host of relevant features and functionality – including some standouts:

  • Conditional logic, which can help you to display more relevant filters, and help users to create them. They will be able to combine those filters, group them, and use them to find the exact product they need quickly.
  • The ability to mark certain products as ‘featured’. This will help you promote new sales or high-stock items, and keep them at the top of the search results.

The unique advanced Ajax product filtering is not only going to help your site’s performance – your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will benefit too. There are lots of metrics that impact your search ranking that advanced Ajax filters can help with.

How fast a page begins to load, how long it takes to load to 100 percent, and how long until a page loads enough resources for a user to read it all matter. Advanced Ajax product filtering can help with all of these aspects.

Conclusion

If you want to provide a good UX to your site’s visitors through a thoughtful UI, advanced Ajax product filters should be a priority. Implementing them will reduce your page speeds, increase site performance, and give visitors a way to self-serve their needs. The end result should bring more income your way.

Acsell is a market-leading advanced Ajax product filter plugin for WooCommerce. It’s a fast way to implement product filters on any WordPress website, and its intuitive approach will save your time and effort. What’s more, its advanced functionality, such as conditional logic, will help you implement product filters that can help users in an organic way.

Acsell costs $99 per year for the full experience. However, you can take it for a test drive using a seven-day free trial – with no obligation to buy at the end of it.

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