How many times have you been enticed into buying a quirky table lamp online that looked and sounded so good that you simply could not resist yourself from adding it to your shopping cart online?

How many times do you check the product specs when ordering a gadget online?

If you pause to think about it, you will realise that a considerable chunk of your online shopping game is played out through reading the specific and detailed product descriptions of the things that you wish to purchase online.

Leading market surveyors Salsify reported that more than 87% of the online shoppers place a high value on product descriptions as important factors for making a decision regarding a purchase.

The stats are actually tipped in favour of the importance of having well-written product descriptions for your products and services. Here are some quick stats about the importance of product descriptions in the minds of your oh-so-valued customers.

• The young guns or the millennial generation consumers are 40% more likely to be influenced by impressive product descriptions that they see online

• The most desired types of information that consumers seek about the products that they view online are product descriptions (76%), reviews (71%) and images (66%) – in that order.

• 50% of the online shoppers have returned the products they purchased stating the reason that the goods did not match the descriptions

The need for having unambiguous and clearly-worded product descriptions that include the technical details of your products and also factor in the keywords for SEO is thus the need of the day if you wish to rake in more business for your ecommerce enterprise.

Why do you need engaging product descriptions?

Getting creative with your product descriptions is an exercise that you should try out at frequent intervals. If you are wondering why you should be going into all that trouble for composing product descriptions by yourself when you can simply rehash the manufacturer’s catalogue descriptions, you should be revising that strategy right now.

While regurgitating product specifications may seem tempting especially if you are keen to start out your ecommerce business right away, it is usually inadvisable. The two reasons that you should not be lifting off the manufacturer’s catalogue content as your product descriptions are:

(i)  Search engines HATE duplicate content for it confuses them. They cannot decide which page(s) featuring same content should be ranked higher in the SERPs and thus do not provide positive rankings to any of the pages. This results in your rankings falling a few places and affecting your visibility the wrong way, making your online marketing strategies a total dud.

(ii) Manufacturer’s catalogues usually focus on the many specifications of the products and are heavy in technical jargon. When you display a product on your page as an online marketer, you should be focussing on the perks that those product specs bring for your customers, so they are enticed into purchasing your product.

You can cash in on the benefits of having splendid product descriptions by tying it to your overall marketing strategy for better conversion rates. Here is why you should be paying much more importance to your product descriptions for the growth of your business right from today to cash in on the immense potential they have to offer.

They allure your customers

Whether you sell apparel or pet accessories online, you should focus on the factor that you need more customers to visit your website to purchase your product. Attractive and high-resolution images work fine as a part of the product descriptions, but you need rocking content to complement those images as well. Studies show that a large number of consumers read the product descriptions very carefully before making a purchase, so why not pay attention to how you market your products and services to them? You should ideally be aiming for product descriptions that make the customers want to buy your products right there and right then.

They help in brand-building

If you are a small online retail chain slowly working your way up the ecommerce ladder, refurbishing your product descriptions may rake in more revenue for you, and here’s why.

Since product descriptions are a detailed account of what you sell and the exact contents of your products, you will be able to spread brand awareness through them as well.

While stashing in too much product specs is not the way to have ideal product descriptions, you should be aiming for the optimum mix of technical lingo merged with marketing catch phrases and keywords to turn the tables in your favour.

Harp on the many benefits that your products will bring to the lives of your consumers, and you will have created the cornerstone for your brand to stand the test of time.

They work wonders with SEO

Since you get to have the upper hand when it comes to composing product descriptions, you can play around with inviting terms, a refreshed vocabulary and of course, keywords.

While optimising your website for search engines relies heavily on the use of keywords relevant to your domain, you might think that your rankings will suffer in case you do not have a lot of content on your page right now.

This is especially true for the small and medium businesses who somehow fail to make it to the big league due to the lack of content on their web pages.

A way around this problem is to include the in-demand keywords in your product descriptions, so your SEO strategy works with clockwork precision and results in getting more traffic your way.

Smart online marketers truly understand the potential of product descriptions, and looking at some of the bigwigs’ websites in your industry will give you a fair idea of how true this is.

Product descriptions play a huge role in the decision-making process for the consumers, so you should be looking for ways to make it so appealing that your customers would not want to leave your website without purchasing the goodies that you have to offer.

Parting words

From inviting potential customers to your site to building goodwill and establishing rapport with them, having great product descriptions can take your business a long way towards all-around growth. Include specific and eye-catching product descriptions for your business and watch as the conversion rates soar to the skies.

External sources

10 Stats That Prove the Importance of Product Content for E-commerce. (August 9, 2017). Retrieved from https://www.onespace.com/

Author bio:

Nathan William is a senior programmer at a software agency in Melbourne and Cdr Engineers Australia expert at MyAssignmenthelp.com. He likes to share her IT expertise for computer engineering with students struggling in writing assignments. As an IT expert, she is experienced in creating customised CDRs for Engineers in Australia.

If you already have an e-commerce website, you know the importance of your product pages. The real magic of the purchase happens there, and eventually, no matter how much energy you put in promoting your home page or maybe well-built blog posts – your product page will either “close the deal” or not. In my opinion, a good product page can affect the conversions even more than the checkout funnel, so there is no doubt you should do something to optimize them.

In this post I’m going to share my proven, best practices about product page optimization, and give you some tips that will make your product pages amazing.

1. Design & Focus

The real purchase process starts from the product page, so you want your product to stand out by removing all distractions while your visitors begin the purchasing funnel.

That means, you want your product to appear above the fold with no other distractions such as special offers or best blog posts to read, so that the visitors will stay focused on the page.

The design should be appealing; the pictures of the product should attract and the page should include a variety of sizes and colors.

Take a look at this great example of a good page design in this product page by Etsy:

 

 

2. Use Amazing Product Photos

 

Since we’re discussing online store product pages, your visitors can’t feel the product in their hands, so you must showcase your product in the best possible way. Today, with social media, the world had transferred from communicating with words to communicating with pictures of “being in the moment”, so you want to use this state of mind in order to sell your product better!

 

Make sure you upload high-quality photos of your product from several angles and add an option to zoom-in on the photos.

 

If possible, even upload a 360 footage to maximize the experience. Here is a nice example of what MVMT Watches did, the photos are in really high quality and you can also have a nice 360 view of their product before buying it :

 

3. Create Great Micro-Copy

 

A product page should not contain a lot of text, as opposed to other kinds of pages you might have in your website, which makes every word counts.

You should use micro-copy strategies in this case – create an idea and a unique feeling for your website’s language and not just copy-paste your product’s (boring) features. Remember, you want to stand-out from your competitors. You want to make your users excited about your product. And if you have no way for the potential buyer to feel the product, use words to describe it and make your visitor excited about it.

 

Here’s a great example of what Mellisa shoes did with their product:

We can see the name of the product has a cool and hip feeling. The description is also unique and explains the inspiration and kind of a “short-history” for the creation and design of this shoe.

The page opens with the announcement of Free Shipping, which we know today, that this method helps the visitor to seal the deal easier and increase the conversion rate. Using a unique language and adding micro-copy is the little, small words we usually don’t think people really care about or actually read, but let me tell you – they make a huge difference! Especially in the E-commerce world. It could be the “free shipping”, or a small CTA button, all of these are places where we can put our effort and increase our conversion rate.

This is a good example of a “not-so-exciting” product description from an online shop called freepeople.com:

We can see the picture is high-quality and also interesting enough, but the description is quite anaemic and more-of-the-same as we are already use to see, there’s nothing that can actually create excitement for the visitor and encourage her to buy.

4. Use Customer Reviews & Product Rating for Your Benefit

 

Nowadays, it is all about communication and sharing ideas, fashion and products all over the world.

A woman from US can purchase the same item as a woman from Sweden or Australia and they all have interesting opinions which they would like to articulate.

So why not use this willing of globalization and idea sharing in order to increase your conversions and make your product relatable and accessible?

Here’s a great example of what Aussie Hair products did in their website:

This example is quite unique because you can choose the product by the rating, hair length and hair type. Which means that other women with similar kinds of hair can tip and recommend each other about using Aussie hair product. I think we can learn a lot from this example about how to create a nice, cool, interactive reviews on a product in a way that will increase engagement with the page and also will help to increase the conversion rate.

5. Solve Uncertainties in Advance

Try to answer as much questions your users might have, before they have the time to ponder on them.

Popular questions we often see are “Is this website safe?”, “How much does shipping cost?”, “Do they have my size?”, “How can I return the product if I don’t want it?”

Make sure you have all the information available on your product page so the user won’t have to look for help on a different page and leave the funnel. Here’s a nice example of how ASOS did it:

 

 

We can see they emphasize the free shipping worldwide, they have a button for the size guide, the price, and color. The website is also secured for purchasing which answer the “is it safe?” question. To warp it up – they give a lot of information in their product page for the visitors, which helps them purchase on the website.

6. Visible, Fun Add-to-Cart Button

Remember, the goal of your product page is first and foremost to sell!

The purchasing funnel begins with the product page but then continues to the “Add-to-cart”, registration and then reaches the final step of payment.

From that reason, if your add-to-cart button gets lost or is not that noticeable – you might miss a lot of sales you could have had. A good button is one that pops-out to the user’s eye; one which located above the fold, formated in a large, visible size and with a contrast color to the website’s color plate. Of course it depends on the colors of your website and most of the times I would not advise to use a red button (unless it’s the color of the other buttons in the website design). Today we know that there is a certain belief that orange and green buttons work best, however I would encourage you not to rely on assumptions and to always A/B test what works on your website and on your buyers.

Here’s a good example of Etsy’s Add-to-Cart button. You can’t miss it even if you try:

7. Related Products your User Might Actually LIKE

Cross-selling and up-selling is today’s hottest trend in the e-commerce field, and when you think about it, why not? Your user is already inside the purchasing funnel – why not use it to your own benefit?

Online marketing researches show that people like recommendations! I personally think they’re great. Their greatness is that they can reveal to your visitors other items they did not know existed in your shop. In addition, they will reveal the variety and richness that your shop has to offer.

So even if your visitor won’t buy another item at the same instant he/she will surely remember your shop the next time they shop online.

In addition, here’s an example of how Book Depository did it. You can see that the algorithm of the website give you more recommendation relying on past purchases and what other buyers which bought the same books as you did also liked. This feature is great because it gives your visitors an opportunity to discover more items they would probably like:

 

Summary and Key Takeaways

If you use all of these tips, you are guarantee to maximize your conversation rate. But also, don’t forget to track everything with Google Analytics in order to optimize and make your product page even better! Use A/B testing in order to better understand what your visitors like or dislike, and don’t forget to have a lot of fun while doing it! ☺

In this day and age of online retail, more and more people are heading to the internet to buy the things they need.

However, problems with online selling, such as shopping cart abandonment (which reached an all-time high at 72%), are real threats to your business. And since ecommerce is becoming so popular, everyone is working full-throttle to make their site the best. How can you beat out the competition and create an ecommerce site that will increase conversion rates?

In this article I’m going to talk about 12 different steps people take when purchasing on an ecommerce site, and show you exactly how to improve those areas of your site in order to increase your conversion rate.

The Home Page

Avoid Complicated Home Pages

If the page that people open up to is, for example, like this…

…then that is an immediate turn off.  There is way too much complication, too many colors, pictures, things of different sizes.  Even the menu is colorful!  Honestly, a page like this will just induce anxiety in your customers, and that’s obviously not what you want.

Instead, create a home page that is simple and uncluttered, avoiding too many bright and wacky colors.

Apple’s home page is a good example:

Simple, elegant, and with exactly what you need to know.  Don’t stuff your home page with offers and deals.  Just show your best, and allow people to browse for anything else.

Let People Know Who You Are

If I stumble upon the page of an online clothes store that I’ve never heard of, I might wonder what kind of styles they specialize in, or what their focus is.  Do they do more punk, emo type clothes?  Are they a site that sells prom dresses and ball gowns?  I don’t know unless they tell me.

Here is a bad example of this:

Who are they?  Why should I buy from them and not some other online store?  I have no idea.

That’s why it’s so good for your main page to feature why your business is unique.  For example, you could use a byline, a short sentence that could appear underneath the logo, for example, to explain in a few words what your business is, what it does, and why it’s different or better than its competitors.

Make Sales and Specials Stand Out

People love deals, and when they’re shopping online they want to make sure they get the best deal possible.

If you’re advertising different products on sale, such as a certain end of season line, or special deals on particular products, it’s an excellent idea to collect these into one page where people can go and view your deals.

One E-Tailing Group study discovered that almost half of all online buyers would only purchase products that were discounted, and a whopping 62% were specifically looking for a section of sales and specials.

JCPenny does a great job of this:

The Product Page

Good Pictures Can Make or Break Sales

This is  in this list.  People need to see exactly what they’re going to buy before they buy it, and this means that YOU need to provide them with everything they need to see in pictures.

Here is a good example from Tobi.com:

We can see the dress from all different angles: front, back, and side.  We can see the length of the dress, and the person wearing the dress shows us exactly how long it is.

Here’s a bad example:

With just the front of the bag showing, we have no idea how big it is inside, whether it has a zipper or a magnet, or how wide it is.

Your photos need to be varied, showing all sides, in and out and all around.  Let people see it as well as they would in a brick and mortar store.

 

Get Ahead of the Game with Product Videos

Video descriptions of your products are becoming the future of online marketing. Videos show people exactly what they want to see.  It doesn’t matter what your product is, show a video and let them see it in real life!

Home Depot does a great job of this with detailed product videos describing and showing their products in action:

Content Counts

Your product descriptions are not meant to be lists of what your product is and what it does.

Boring your customers into buying something isn’t a good marketing strategy. Instead, find the features of your product and turn those into benefits, showing people specific ways that your product will improve their life.

See how it’s done with this hand soap description:

So not only will this soap wash your hands, but will actually improve your holiday spirit!

See how they drew you in there?

What you write also has a bearing in your Call to Action buttons. For example, Dewalt was testing different call to action button text to see what words brought the best conversion rate. Upon changing one such button in a product page from ‘Shop Now’ to ‘Buy Now’, they got 17% more clicks!

Such simple changes can create big differences.

 

Respond to People’s Doubts and Fears

People worry about shipping costs, returns, and other questions that are related to your product. Let them have responses to those concerns. For example, add a tab in your description of the product that details shipping and return policies. For clothing, have a sizing chart so people know exactly how the piece will fit them.

Adding an FAQ with answers, or even a Live Chat system, will assuredly increase your conversion rates.  In fact, adding answers to FAQ questions on the product page increased conversion rates for Roller Skate Nation by 69%!

Check out this very well put together product page:

They provide extensive information on shipping on returns, and offer more advice for any other needs that the client has.  These are things that will definitely increase conversion!

The Cart and Checkout

Be the Best Price (And Flaunt it!)

If your product has a better price for quality than your competitors, don’t be afraid to make that known!  Many people compare-shop, and will abandon the cart that has the more expensive product.  Avoid abandonment by showing your customers exactly how much they are saving.

Allow Customers to See What’s in the Cart While they Browse

Do you ever add things to your cart and then continue shopping? Obviously.

Do you then forget what is in the cart, or how much total you’re spending? Most likely.

Keep the customer aware of what he’s doing by showing him what’s going on in his cart, such as how many items he has and the subtotal of what he’s spending, like this:

 

Send Follow-Up Emails to Shopping Cart Abandoners

Don’t let those abandoners get away! Have them enter their email as they put things in their online shopping cart. Then, if they abandon the cart, get that follow up email to them as quickly as possible! After that, make sure you can track the results.

KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid

Forced registration to a website, exaggerated forms to fill out, and not enough payment options are all reasons people abandon carts.

Make your checkout process as simple as possible for the customer, and don’t force them to go through hoops to finish their purchase.

For example, in this checkout scenario we see that the zip code is input first, and once the customer puts in their zip code, the other information is automatically filled in, thus making it much easier for the user!

Why Free Shipping Is a Must

If you charge for shipping, you are putting yourself into the losing half of the ecommerce industry. Yes, over half of online sellers offer free shipping to their customers.

Why?

Because in this study, 73% of online shoppers said that free shipping was critical to their online purchase, and another study discovered the fact that nearly every person who shops online will be encouraged to purchase more products if free shipping is offered.

This is not an option, this is a must if you really want to increase conversion rates.

JCPenny is a great example of one way to offer free shipping, and that is by setting a minimum spending amount to reach free shipping (in their case being $50).

An example of how well this works is the company 2BigFeet, whose conversions increased by 50% overnight when they started offering free shipping for orders over $100.

Free shipping will appeal to buyers and ultimately lead them to a satisfactory shopping experience, which is exactly what your business needs in order to find true success.

Summary

In total, these are relatively small changes that will make a big difference. Starting from when customers first visit your page, make them feel comfortable and invite them in by letting them know who you are and convincing them that you are unique in some way.  Make your products stand out by letting the customer see them in videos, pictures, and by creating fantastic copy that answers questions and refutes doubts.  Finally, make the checkout experience a great one by ensure the easiest finish to the buying process, and making sure they don’t abandon their cart.  Implementing these tips is a sure way to increase conversion and reach your full potential as a business.