Traffic is expensive, no one knows it better than an entrepreneur. You spend hundreds of dollars and hours of precious time on Facebook advertisements to bring people face to face with your product, and just as they land, they bounce off.
But before you throw your hands down and close shop, we have a proposal: a little something that can have a tremendous impact on the amount of time visitors spend on your product page and the amount of money.
It involves product page optimization, which can make your conversion rate go from:
To….
While the basic rules of creating an optimal product page are fairly common, ranging from adding clear calls to action to writing great product descriptions, today, we will be focusing on some lesser-known improvements for your product page!
Here’s an overview of all the advice we’re about to expand on, in the article:
- In context: Caption your images
- Bury the drab: Highlight your features
- What are the options: Alternate Products
- The tidbits: Supplementary products
- Keep it in the family: Consistency
- All in all: Estimated shipping costs
- That’s what she said: User uploaded images
- Take it back: Return information
Optimise your product page with these 8 key, oft-ignored elements:
1. In context--Caption your images:
Guess what 56% people do immediately upon landing on a product page. Yep. Scan the photos. We all do it: and no wonder, our brains process images 60,000 times faster than text. Educators were on to something when they shifted to visual media!
In fact, 18-20% of the entire time spent on the product page is dedicated to the product images.
But what does that mean for your online store?
This means your images hold the power to enthral or repulse the customer.
By that, we mean:
- You NEED high-quality photos demonstrating the product’s use.
- You need to go beyond the limitations of photos.
The limitations of photos are that they need to convey a tonne of information about the product...all through the visual means. But there’s a hack.
Do you know why infographics work? Because they trick our brains into thinking that the text is a part of the image. Information: visualised.
Your e-commerce website can slam the best of both worlds together to have photos with explanatory text on it. It’s easy, and it’s effective.
This photograph of an iron on Amazon does a fantastic job helping us understand the features of the iron while also showcasing its appearance:
We also love how itr Studio displays the qualities of their 5 in 1 backpack!
52% ecommerce businesses do NOT do this, so get working and lead the way! In case you need our advice with editing tools that allow you to add snippets of text to your images, Canva, Stencil and Fotor are our picks!
This will ensure all the amazing features of your product pop out and catch the eye of your customers! Do I need to elaborate on how it boosts your conversion rate?
2. Bury the drab--Highlight your features
If there is one thing we absolutely despise, it is copy-pasted product descriptions. If you wish to build a brand, and come up as a respectable name in your business, you have to invest in your e-commerce product pages.
While this is easy to scan, there are better ways to write product descriptions--and no, we’re not just talking about fancy language: we’re speaking about accessible product descriptions that convert a visitor.
This works...but it is boring. Users love the razzle-dazzle! Engagement shoots off the charts with a highlights based description, but believe it or not, 78% people do not employ it!
This product description for a watch highlights all the core features of the product, making it easy for the user to learn important details of the product, such as what the strap is made of and where the product is water-proof.
For all the features of your product that you think are great selling points or essential pieces of information before you yourself would buy a product, make headlines out of them.
In fact, ditch the old, frequently used format for product descriptions and try to create a single page dedicated to selling the product: high quality pictures paired with well-worded feature highlights.
3. What are the options--Alternate Products:
Do not allow this space to be taken over by partner products when you can utilise it to advertise products similar to the product on display.
Customers may come from different directions with a vague idea of what they really want to buy: a jacket for winter-y trips from office to home. At this point, any jacket that they find upon scrolling may be the object they click on.
But not the item they purchase. If they decide the jacket is not worth their dollars, they essentially have two routes to take:
1. Leave your site
2. Conduct a thorough search of your site till they find exactly what they are looking for
Now, of course, the customer is looking for something that is similar to the product they have actually landed on--so the best course of action to ensure the customer makes a purchase would be to recommend products that are akin to the jacket they are looking at!
Amazon shows a variety of products that may be better suited to you:
Alternate products make it easier for your customers to find the right product, and make a purchase without having to go over your entire catalogue.
The tidbits--Supplementary products:
Alternate products and supplementary products serve entirely different purposes and we suggest you showcase both on your product page.
The reason is that while alternate product recommendations do a great job helping your customer hone in on the main product they need to buy--supplementary products are an opportunity to cross-selll.
Supplementary products also allow you to display the vastness of your catalogue to the customer: awareness of all the types of products you sell helps them understand your brand better. As an illustrative example, let us go back to the jacket. Supplementary products generally fit in with the broader category as the major product: here, it could be winter wear.
A scarf or gloves might be extremely relevant, yet diverse products to recommend. These fall into the main category, but also show your customer the range of clothing and accessories you have available.
Pandora, the jewellery brand, does a great job at this. For a pendant, you can view a ‘You may also like’ section, where you can look at alternate pendants, and a ‘Frequently bought together’ section, where rings are displayed.
Supplementary Products
Only about 42% e-commerce companies get this right: you need BOTH, supplementary and alternate products to optimise your conversion rate.
The customer should not experience fatigue hunting for the right product, and should have an opportunity to purchase a package that serves all their needs at the moment.
This is especially true for stores selling homeware, electronics and jewellery. Add-ons can also have extra discounts to make them appear appealing: but the trick is the balance between relevance and variety.
While supplementary products are cross-category sells, they need to make sense to the customer. A phone charger being displayed as a supplementary product on the product page for a laptop would not necessarily be the best recommendation!
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