How to Limit Resources for Search Queries on SQL Express to Avoid Impact on Overall Performance?

Question

I’m running a news website using SQL Express as the backend database. The site’s search functionality is causing performance issues when users run queries with LIKE %term%. I have full-text indexing enabled, but the search page still performs slowly and negatively affects the performance of other pages on the website.

I don’t mind if the search page takes longer to load (even up to a minute), but I need a way to limit the resources allocated to these search queries so that they don't impact the performance of other parts of the site.

Since SQL Express doesn’t include advanced resource governance options like the Enterprise Edition, I’m looking for alternative ways to control the resource usage for these specific queries.

Here are the details:

SQL Express server

Full-text indexing is enabled

Queries use LIKE %term% for 3 text fields.

I’m fine with search page loading slower, as long as other pages don’t experience delays

Is there a way to limit CPU, memory, or query priority for these search queries, either through SQL Server or at the application level?

I tried to enable Full-text indexing but it still takes up to 20 seconds to run the query