If you have dozens—or even hundreds-of blog posts, products, or custom post types on your website, navigating through all of them manually can be overwhelming.
Imagine you’re browsing an eCommerce website trying to find a specific product. With so many items listed, scrolling endlessly to find what you need isn’t a great user experience.
That’s where search functionality becomes essential. A well-designed search page can help visitors instantly locate the exact content they’re looking for, saving time and improving engagement.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to build a clean, efficient, and fully customizable search template using AnyWhere Elementor Pro. You’ll learn how to combine templates, dynamic widgets, and styling options to design a search results page that works beautifully across all content types.
Key Takeaways: What You’ll Learn
- What a Search Template is in a WordPress website
- How to build a custom Search Template in Elementor
- How to use AE widgets for dynamic search result layouts
- How to display keyword, result count, and more
What Is a Search Template in Elementor?
A Search Template in Elementor is a custom-designed layout used to display search results on your WordPress website.
Instead of relying on your theme’s default search results page, AnyWhere Elementor Pro allows you to create a completely custom search experience. Whether you’re showcasing blog posts, WooCommerce products, or portfolios, the search template filters your content and presents it in a tailored format based on the visitor’s keyword input.
Essentially, it functions as an archive page that dynamically displays results matching the searched term, organized in a way that matches your site’s branding and user experience goals.
Here is the sneak peek of what we will achieve
When Should You Use a Custom Search Template?
Here are some common scenarios where a custom search results page is not just helpful, but essential:
- Large eCommerce Stores with Thousands of Products: Help customers quickly find exactly what they’re looking for by displaying filtered, styled product results instead of relying on a generic theme layout.
- Blogs with Hundreds of Posts Across Categories: Let readers instantly explore relevant blog content, sorted by relevance, tags, categories, or even custom fields, making their experience more engaging.
- Portfolio Websites with Multiple Project Types: Designers, agencies, and creatives can allow potential clients to search by project type, industry, or tools used, showcasing work more effectively.
- Knowledge Bases or Documentation Sites: Provide fast, accurate search results for users looking for specific guides, tutorials, or documentation topics—beneficial for support-heavy platforms.
Get Started With Search Template
To get started you will need to install Anywhere Elementor Pro and Elementor plugins.
You will also need some posts/pages created for testing purposes to have the search results page show actual results.
After that, you are ready to go.
Step 1: Creating Block Layout
Before creating a Search template, we need to design the layout for our search result page. For this
- First, navigate to your WordPress admin dashboard and select AE – Template -> Add New to create a new template.
- Under the AnyWhere Elementor Settings, you must perform some configuration. Select Render Mode as Block Layout and a Preview Post to be used to create the block layout.
- Then edit the template using Elementor. Then add the dynamic widgets to get the content from the post. Give appropriate styling to the layout.
The block layout looks like this.
Step 2: Creating a Search Template
After you are done with the block layout, next, we will be creating the Search Template
- Go to WordPress dashboard AE Template -> Add new create a new template which will be used for the search layout.
- Now, configure the AnyWhere Elementor Settings. Since we are creating a Search template select render mode as Search template and set your template settings. Then edit the template with Elementor page builder.
- In the Elementor editor, add a section and then drag the AE – Search Form widget into it. Enter the default search label and give text to the search button. Style the widget accordingly.
- If you want to display the searched text and the result count, you can add a Text Editor widget with the following text in it.
- [AE_SEARCH_KEY]: to show the search keyword
- [AE_SEARCH_COUNT]: to show search result count
Step 3: Display Search Results with AE – Post Block ADV
To display the search result, you need to add the AE-Post Block ADV widget, and then configure the settings for the blocks.
Under the Layout settings, you can set the presentation layout of the posts. Select the layout under the Skin option, such as Grid, Carousel, and Accordion.
Then, select the block layout you have created. Set the pagination and layout options and give some styling to the blocks.
Moving on to the Query settings, under the Source, select Current Archives. The ADV Post Blocks gives you more advanced options and features to design your Search template, like FacetWP Filter Bar, more control on Pagination, etc
That’s it, and you are done with creating your own customizable Search Template. Now you need to go to your website and type in a keyword in the search field, and there you go!
FAQs on Search Template in AnyWhere Elementor
Do I need Elementor Pro to create a search template?
No, you only need the free version of Elementor along with AnyWhere Elementor Pro.
Is it possible to customize the search result layout completely?
Absolutely. By creating a custom Block Layout in AE Pro, you have full control over how each result appears
Can I style the search form to match my website’s branding?
Yes, the AE – Search Form widget comes with full styling options in Elementor, letting you customize fonts, colors, spacing, icons, and more.
Final Thoughts
With AnyWhere Elementor Pro, creating a fully custom search results page is no longer a developer-only task. In just a few easy steps, you can deliver a personalized search experience for your visitors, helping them find the content they care about faster.
Ready to elevate your search UX? Try building your custom Search Template today.