At DareDevil we love improving webpages in order to increase the amount of sales made and leads generated for our clients. The rise of affordable eCommerce platforms and plugins over the past few years has made selling online incredibly accessible whether you are selling 10 (or less!) products or hundreds of thousands. All too often though we see product pages falling short where it matters with the end result being that the customer goes elsewhere to purchase.
Here are some ways that you can improve your product pages and increase your E-commerce Conversion Rate
SEO Fundamentals
Page Title
Make sure that your product name is at the beginning of your page title, followed by any category or other relevant information.
Meta Description
Create a unique and to the point description about your product and tell your potential customer why they should buy from you.
H1
Ensure that your product name is the H1 of your page as this will help confirm with search engines what the focus of the page is
Images
Always ensure that your image has an ALT tag of the product name and a description. If your images are also surrounded by, or close to descriptive text, you are improving the chances of your image appearing highly for users searching for specific images, which can be a great way of driving extra traffic to your store.
Content
It’s not enough to just include the description straight from the manufacturer. If Search Engines have read that copy elsewhere, your page isn’t going to be seen as offering its users enough value to be ranked above your competitors.
Make Your Content Unique
Include your own description or review of the product, not only will this give search engines what they want, adding your tone and character to your copy throughout your website can really help to win over your visitors who may not be familiar with you.
Include As Much Information As Possible
Depending on the types of products you sell, there may be plenty of opportunities to include lots of details about the products, such as height, weight, material used and washing instructions to name just a few. Many clothing retailers take this a step further by including size and style guides and images of each variant of a product such as different colour or styles.
Customer Reviews, Q&A & Ratings
Getting your customers involved in your quest to create unique content is a great way to ensure that your product pages have copy that your competitors won’t and can’t have! Offer an incentive (such as a discount code) once a customer has purchased from you to write a review.
Inviting potential customers to ask questions which will appear on your page in a similar format seen on eBay listings is a great way of interacting with your potential customers and generating unique content. If somebody asks a question and you provide an answer publically, it’s safe to say that another potential customer will be helped in the future.
Star Rating systems are a great way to visually display what your customers think of your products. A rating, when combined with other information and reviews can help your customer make a decision of what product is right for them
Shopping Elements
The crucial elements of a product page are often inexplicably overlooked. A few simple tweaks and adjustments to what you already have can make a remarkable impact on the amount of sales you make.
Add To Basket
The “Add To Basket” or “Add To Cart” button on your product page MUST be above the fold and be instantly distinguishable from other elements of your page. If your button isn’t standing out enough, or a user has to search for it by scrolling, it will be having a negative impact on your websites performance.
Price
This needs to be clear and obvious. If your website offers free postage: say so! If there will be additional costs, don’t hide it. A potential customer won’t appreciate the shock of being asked to pay hefty additional fees when they get to the checkout stage and will shop elsewhere.
Availability
If the item is in stock, great! If it isn’t, but you have an idea when it will be available (i.e 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks) then include that as well. If the item is temporally out of stock invite your potential customer to receive an e-mail notification when you do have it. If you miss out on the sale on this occasion, potentially they will return and buy something else.
Many larger retailers with multiple brick and mortar stores will also display stock levels of particular stores, which is proving to have a great impact on driving more in-store sales.
Reassurances
If you can re-assure your potential customers that you are indeed a legitimate operation and that any potential post sale issues can be addressed, that will help the decision to complete the purchase swing in your favour.
Returns Policy
If you have a Returns Policy (of course you do?!) make it easy to find. Either include a link to it site wide in the footer of your website so it is only one click away from a product page, or better still outline it on the page itself with a link inviting your potential customer to read more.
Social Proof
If you have a presence on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (or elsewhere!) include a link to your profile. Also incorporate social sharing buttons to your products, this will re-assure your potential customer as they will see that other users have shared your content.
Similar Products
If you sell products similar to the one being looked at, why not shout about it? Including a visual display of similar products can be used to cross or up sell your products. It can also be really helpful for your users if they aren’t quite sure about what they are looking for.
