If you don’t think ecommerce product pages matter much to your business, consider this scenario:
You’re shopping online for a new pair of shoes.
The first ecommerce website you visit features multiple high-quality images, detailed specifications, customer reviews, and even a video showing the shoes from multiple angles.
The second website you visit features exactly one photo of the shoes, very little information about sizing and color options, and zero customer reviews.
Which site are you more likely to purchase from? Obviously, the first one.
The simple truth is that your ecommerce landing page design can be the difference between a sale and a quick bounce from your site.
And while every junction in the customer buying journey matters, the product detail page is, arguably, the most important. The detail page is the decision point, the moment when they decide to either place an item in the shopping cart or shop elsewhere.
Bottom line: your product pages are critical and you would be well served to ensure they’re of the highest quality.
Many ecommerce website owners make the critical mistake of assuming that traffic equals sales and that if they increase traffic, sales will increase at the same rate. But this simply isn’t true.
If your site isn’t optimized for conversions, it’s like pouring water into a leaky bucket. No matter how much water you dump in, you can never fill the bucket. The same goes for site traffic. If your site isn’t optimized, traffic will “leak” out without turning into sales.
The fundamental secret to ecommerce growth is not more traffic, but more conversions from existing traffic.
Hence the need to create a highly effective and optimized site that’s designed to convert as many visitors as possible into sales.
But how exactly do you do that?
9 Ways to Create High Converting Ecommerce Product Pages
In this post, we’re going to provide 9 ways to create ecommerce product pages that will convert at a high level. These are foundational elements that should be tested and optimized on a regular basis.
#1 – Be Very Specific In Your Product Name
In the case of your product name, longer is better. Two reasons for this:
- First, each word in the name is a potential keyword for organic search. For example, the title, “Men’s Nike Air Max Running Shoes Size 10,” is better than, “Men’s Air Max.”
- Second, longer product names make it easier for customers to find exactly what they’re looking for. Instead of having to click through to each product, they can simply scan the product names to find the one they want.
These Bluetooth headphones on Amazon are a great example of a detailed product name:
Essentially, the seller attempted to include as much relevant information in the title as possible, making it easier for the customer to find them.
#2 – Focus Your Product Descriptions On The Consumer
When writing product descriptions, it’s easy to go deep into the weeds on the specifications, like size, weight, battery life, etc.
And while these things matter, the primary focus of your descriptions should be on how the products will benefit the consumer.
This means you need to understand your audience – their needs, problems, desires, as well as the language they use to describe those things. The copy for your product page should be written so that it addresses the needs, problems, and desires.
Help the potential customer envision exactly how your product will benefit them and improve their lives. How will your cooking knife set make it easier for them to cook a meal?
Additionally, the description should be:
- Easily scannable
- Jargon-free
- Full of necessary, critical information
- Written to overcome objections
- Answering relevant questions
Note how Nike copywriters use minimum space, talk about features in terms of benefits (“perforated synthetic leather for breathability”), and provide clear descriptions of every part of the shoe.
#3 – Be Clear and Concise On The Price
For many shoppers, the price is the primary driver in terms of whether or not they’ll purchase. If they can’t easily find the price, they’ll probably become wary and shop somewhere else.
Put the price in a prominent place, and if you offer a discount, strikethrough the old price. This is a classic tactic used by Amazon and is one of the reasons they convert at such a high rate.
#4 – Provide A Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)
If your ecommerce product pages have clearly laid out the key benefits, addressed potential objections, and answered the prospect’s questions, you have earned the right to call your online shoppers to action.
In most cases, this will simply be an “Add to Cart” button.
The CTA should be in a prominent place and be as simple as possible. Do everything you can to make the checkout process smooth, with minimal friction.
Think about all that Amazon has done to speed up checkout.
They save your information, offer 1-click ordering, and have even implemented Dash Buttons so you can order without even going online.
Why? Because they know that speed is essential when it comes to the checkout process.
#5 – Use Multiple High-Resolution Images
Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, potential customers can’t touch your ecommerce products. This reality makes multiple high-quality images absolutely essential.
Show your products from multiple angles so that potential customers can get a sense of exactly what they look like.
Additionally, show your products in context. For example, if you sell headphones, show someone wearing them so the prospect can see the actual size.
Also, show your products in use to give potential customers a sense of what owning the product will be like.
Your copy and your product photos work in tandem. The copy tells the prospect about your product while the photos lend credence to what the copy says.
#6 – Implement Videos
Videos are becoming increasingly important for ecommerce product pages due to the fact that they can show even more aspects of your product than photos. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth ten-thousand.
And the data backs up the importance of video.
Studies have suggested that videos can increase product page conversion rates from anywhere between 84%-144%.
Why are videos so effective? Several reasons.
If your product may be perceived as difficult to use, videos can demonstrate how simple it actually is.
If customers want to know the differences between certain features, videos can describe the differences quickly and accurately.
And, perhaps more than anything, videos allow potential customers to visualize themselves using the product.
#7 – Include Social Proof
The reality is that people tend to trust peers more than companies, advertisers, and marketers.
Marketers have an agenda – to sell products – which makes it more likely that they’ll inflate the benefits and downplay any problems. Peers are more likely to be objective in discussing products.
This is why social proof, such as customer reviews, is so important. The commonly touted statistic is that user reviews are twelve times more powerful than marketing claims.
And while the number itself may not be exact, customer reviews are absolutely essential for every ecommerce page.
In terms of social proof, you can implement user reviews, social media posts, expert recommendations, etc.
Your goal is simply to help the potential customer know that they’re making a smart choice and that many other people have had good experiences with the product.
#8 – Make It Easy To Compare Products
It’s highly likely that the first product a potential customer views won’t be the best option for them. They may want a different color, style, size, etc.
By both recommending and comparing other products within the product page itself, you can maintain the attention of the prospect and move them closer to making a purchase.
Ideally, using both historical data (macro purchasing trends among all customers) and retargeting (e.g. Facebook pixel, browsing history), you can provide personalized recommendations that will appeal directly to the consumer’s tastes.
#9 – Inspire Trust
There will always be a segment of your potential customers who are hesitant to buy online. Maybe they’ve had bad experiences or maybe they’re part of an older generation which didn’t grow up purchasing everything on Amazon.
For these individuals, adding trust elements to your product pages can significantly increase the odds of them purchasing.
What sorts of trust elements?
- Clearly defined returned policies
- Money-back guarantees
- Live chat with customer service reps
- Warranties
- Shipping details
- Etc…
You want the customer to know that if they encounter a problem, you will do everything in your power to make it right. When you can engender trust with hesitant customers, it increases the chances of a sale.
Test and Optimize
Once you’ve implemented at least some of the product page elements listed above, you can begin A/B testing to determine the optimal layout for increasing conversions on your pages.
At a high level, this conversion rate optimization should:
- Be data-based. A/B testing should never be done randomly or based on gut instinct. Using data culled from analytics, heat maps, and user testing, identify the areas that have the most potential to increase the conversion rate.
Form hypotheses based on the data, test the hypotheses, statistically evaluate the results, and then implement changes. - Be structured. Start with the areas that have the greatest potential to improve conversion rates.
Test one element at a time, evaluate the results and then make necessary changes. Then move to the next most important area and repeat the process. - Be iterative. CRO is not a one-and-done process. After identifying a winner in an A/B test, do another A/B test where the winner is compared to yet another potential optimization.
The more you iterate, the more you’ll see your conversion rate increase.
Conclusion – The Compounding Power Of CRO
The beauty of product page CRO is that it creates compounding rewards. The more optimizations you implement on your ecommerce product pages, the more quickly your conversion rate and revenue climbs.
For example, let’s say your current conversion rate is 2% and you have 100,000 monthly visitors who on average make a $150 purchase. That’s 2000 customers converting a month and $300,000 in revenue.
Then you optimize your product pages and your conversions increase just a half a percent (+.5%). Now you’re making $375,000 per month.
Then you continue to optimize and your conversion rate climbs another half a percent (+.5%) Your monthly revenue now climbs to $450,000.
Notice that you didn’t have to purchase any more traffic to increase your revenue.
By optimizing your product pages, you increased your revenue on your existing traffic.
This then frees up money to purchase more traffic, which then leads to even more revenue, and so on.
It’s a virtuous cycle.
If you’re an ecommerce store owner, don’t be content with your existing conversion rates. Every visitor you don’t convert is money left on the table.
Start optimizing and plug the leaks in your bucket.
Author Bio
Jon MacDonald is president and founder of The Good, a Portland, OR based conversion rate optimization company that has achieved results for a variety of clients including Adobe, Nike, Xerox, and many more. In addition, he regularly contributes content on conversion optimization to publications like Inc., Entrepreneur, Optimizely, and others. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
