Product pages are the soul of your eCommerce store. All of the emails sent, campaigns created, paid ads made … everything aims to drive traffic to these pages. While driving traffic is a tall task, it’s still only half of the purchase process. According to a report from Q3 2018, only 2.42% of e-Commerce store visits actually convert into purchases. Now the numbers may be significantly less and might even surprise you, but here’s what you need to realize: if you have an eCommerce store that gets a lot of visitors, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your products are the reason for that traffic nor does it mean users are actually going to make a purchase.
In order for your customers to get interested in your products, it will come down to the smallest product details, page design, the information displayed, and other crucial factors. In this article, we’ll be crafting and looking beyond the art of optimizing your product pages with proven techniques to get your e-Store rolling.
Decoding Kickass Product Pages:
There are no product pages or products without text. Words are an incredibly powerful tool: with a few taps of the keyboard, you can reach out to a customer 1000 miles away and turn their ‘maybe’ into a yes. Sounds easy? A 2018 study published in The Journal of Marketing highlighted that customer experiences have four dimensions:
a) Informative
b) Entertaining
c) Social
d) Sensory
It’s the relevance and intensity of each dimension that influences a customer to make a purchase. For example: If a person is looking out for a certain product type, the customer would focus on: facts, information, and product specifications. Other customers will be influenced more by the social experience — i.e. , social proof (reviews, ratings), human content (not just bullet points) that tells them how a product provides a solution. Overall, conversion inspiration varies from one person to another, and it’s essential eCommerce store owners need enhance their product pages from every perspective to maximize sales. Being unique and better implementing your brand into your product pages automatically yields more leads, traffic and organic shares.
TIP#1: CTA – Strong, Clear and Obvious
There’s a reason why having a strong call-to-action (CTA) is important and why it lands at step #1 in our list. If you want someone to buy from you, you need to show and tell them that. Yes, it’s that simple. When the CTA is buried somewhere on the page or is too-crafty or lacks impact; this usually shows a lack of insight, or ignorance in the eyes of the customer.
CTAs are the second-most prominent part of your product page, first being the product. It just CAN’T be missed. And if your customers have to scroll for the CTA to appear, it’s a downer as well. Here’s a good example of a CTA:
TIP#2: 360° Product Videos and Studio-Quality Images are Customers’ Eyes and Ears
If you want your visitors to invest their time, interest, and money in you, you need to give them as much visual information as possible. About 33.16% of customers online prefer to see multiple photos of the product, multiple times before actually making the decision of making a purchase. Unlike a brick and mortar store, your online customers can only see and feel what you show them. Exactly the reason why you need to provide them with a well rounded view of your product, including multiple angles, images or videos of the product in use or being modelled, and different lighting.
i) 360-degree product images
There are two types of product images. Firstly, generic images that your customers might have come across on various stores, and secondly, images that are only available in your store. Close-ups, new angles that give vivid detail provide more value to your customers. Your images need to look better than other generic images, if they look worse or too different, they may seem deceiving. Creating 360 product images is finicky, but pays off in the long run. Here’s a good example of how product images should look:
ii) Creating Product Videos
According to Google reports, 50% of Internet users generally look first for product-related videos before actually visiting a physical store and getting invested in a product. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, then videos are a thesis! Be it a tutorial video or product-closeup product videos help your customers gain more detailed information. Videos show your product in action, which helps the customer envision themselves using your product.
A good example of this is:
TIP#3: Crafting Product Content — Detailed and Transparent
Don’t slack on your content! Another study claims that 88% of shoppers generally consider product content as crucial if it includes:
- A pertinent product title
- Price
- Key specifications and features
- Care instructions
- Brand information
- Size, dimensions and capacity
Apart from the above, here’s a list of things your content should be:
- Product descriptions need to be short, crisp and relevant
- Text copy should speak about your brand more than anything else
- Content optimization by using product page keywords
- Has clear structure, heading and bullet points in order to enhance readability
- It must also include product specifications
Product descriptions may sound and read easy, but the drafting process can be a bit daunting as you need to identify the right fields to include everything your audience needs. If everything is covered, less burden is placed on customer service to explain things. Here’s a good example of an engaging short product description:
TIP#4: Mobile Optimization = More Traffic
In today’s world, more than 50% of traffic comes from mobile devices of different variants like Android, iOS and more. In the USA as of December 2017, 82% of online shoppers came from smartphones, out of which 35% were strictly only-mobile shoppers. There are many Commerce businesses that have shopping apps for both Android and iOS devices, and this means businesses can maximize user traffic. Google’s recent algorithm update, BERT, recognizes the Mobile-First Index that can put your eCommerce site rank higher in SERPs and can, therefore, mobile-friendly eStores is like killing two birds with one stone.
TIP#4: Providing Social Proof
Studies say that almost 95% of online shoppers make their purchase decision after reading customer reviews. Including reviews on your product pages will greatly increase your conversion rates. Such numbers highlight that customers online are always looking for humanized content on products they are interested in. However, it is important to note that just by displaying reviews on the eStore you cannot reap its rewards, the manner in which you present these testimonials matters the most. Here are some of the most tried and tested methods:
- Personal Details in Testimonials
Reviews don’t sound genuine until there’s a personal touch associated with them. It’s also considered a huge plus if the reviewer is a customer of your eStore rather than a customer from other sources. This adds an empathetic appeal to the review that your other customers can easily relate to in order to get a clear idea about the functioning of the product. In terms of skincare and grooming industry, self-made reviews hold a crucial role as it gets deeper into the detail about the skin type, shade preferred as well as the skin tone of the reviewer. Here’s a good example of a rich and genuine product review on BirchBox:
- Easy-To-Read Reviews
If your customers are fond of giving long, detailed customer testimonials without any requests, then you’re indeed doing something right! The truth is we all have refrained from reading or writing too long reviews. Sometimes, the customers may have a lot to say and as a responsible store owner, you need to let them speak their minds. In such cases, you can get crafty in representing it by showing a highlighted bottom line to the reviews, or you can even highlight the most relevant part of the review for your customers to skim through. Here’s an example:
TIP#5: A/B Test Everything
The only way to be double-sure of every new change that you introduce is to have respective A/B Testing done to each of the elements. Now, this may include:
- CTA Wording
- CTA Placement
- CTA Color
- Product Description
- Review Positioning
- Price Placement
- Price Font Size
Consistency needs to be maintained evenly throughout the processes. Not even one of the product pages should be miles away from the rest of the product pages. And A/B Tests need to be run periodically to know what works and what doesn’t.
Conclusion:
Product pages define the entire essence of your eCommerce store. The moment a visitor lands on one of these pages, there is the potential to convert. It’s important you implement most of the above tips to optimize your product pages, not every tip will seem appropriate for your business. Implementing one or a few will help but won’t result in significant changes.
Making changes to your product pages, you’re going to need quality designers or developers. Finding experts to develop your online store isn’t easy, you need to find developers you can trust, yet are affordable. Many businesses look offshore to find more affordable hiring prices. Look for companies that have a global presence, so you can get the best talent from around the globe, yet still at an affordable price. The web development company, CodeClouds, allows one to hire development experts in Fort Wayne (US), Kolkata (India) or even creative designers from New Zealand.
