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Concrete Ways to Improve Your Product Page

ShoppingFor anyone involved in e-commerce, the product page is the most important of all. You will have spent considerable time and effort and engaged in a good process of education to attract your customer to this point. This represents the narrowest part of your sales funnel and all of your efforts have been directed at steering would-be clients through your webpages to this, the point of reckoning!

Within the product page you will be displaying your goods or services, listing the various options available, providing all the relevant associated information and displaying the ultimate call to action – the purchase or add to cart link. It follows that there is so much at stake here that you should pay particular attention to the layout of your product page and to markedly improve the chances of someone converting from prospect to client.

It is important to remember that your product page must be optimized and must not present any barriers, perceived or otherwise to the ultimate goal of the purchase. Always try and look at your page from the point of view of the client and remember that he or she will not have the in depth knowledge of your system or site to help them as they navigate. This is important, as you should not assume anything during this process.

The art of compiling the perfect product page involves a delicate balance between providing too much material (and making your page just too busy) versus providing not enough. For example, you might think that you have provided a lot of information on preceding pages to describe the product or service for sale, but again you should not assume that all of this information will have been retained and you do not want people to be clicking back and forth too much as this will cut down on your conversion rate. Include an appropriate, succinct summary of the item as well as a thumbnail photograph. The thumbnail should, in turn, be linked to a larger photograph.

When it comes to the visuals, the inclusion of photographs can be very important, especially when in relation to detailed elements. In some instances, you may need to add code that allows the visitor to click and expand the thumbnail into a rotating animation showing each side of the product. The more detailed and more expensive the item, the higher and more detailed resolution that you should strive for. However, make sure that you do not place high resolution photographs in their entirety as this will invariably slow load time for the page. When optimizing the page, make sure that the file names and “alt” tags include the product keyword.

Alongside the product name and image, include easy to understand options selection. For example, various sizes and various quantities in drop down boxes. The description should be very specific again and reflect the benefits of buying the item. Here, you are basically reassuring them at the very end of your sales funnel process and will have already outlined the features and benefits of your wares earlier on.

One of the mistakes that many people make is not clearly outlining the shipping costs, if any associated. Don’t make the prospect go all the way through the checkout pages to calculate shipping costs and be as open as you can about these costs as early on in the process as you can. This will help you to reduce your shopping cart “click away” ratio.

Remember that shoppers are always looking for reassurance, even up to the point of actual purchase. This is why many of the more successful online companies include links on the product page. For example, you could see what other shoppers purchased, the products which are related or complementary. This, together with one or two positive testimonials, is an important part of social proof, which should help your conversions.

Make sure that you spend time to create the best product page as this is the real point of focus. The call to action should be clear and unequivocal and there should be enough relevant information and social proof to convince the visitor that it is time to click the “buy” button.

How have you created a great product page?

Matthew Toren

Matthew Toren
 

Matthew Toren is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, investor and co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com. He is co-author, with his brother Adam, of Kidpreneurs.org, BizWarriors.com and Small Business, BIG Vision: Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right (Wiley).

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