What Is Product Page Optimization?

When you run an e-commerce business, you need to drive traffic to your website to make sales. Getting prospects to your visit your home page is only part of the process. If you’ve been online for a while, you may notice a high volume of potential customers who peruse your website and leave without making a purchase. You can improve your chances of converting with better product pages.

Product page optimization is the process of developing thoughtful and compelling pages that help increase conversion rates by compelling people to buy. When shopping in person, customers can touch products and ask questions. A good salesperson knows how to answer these questions in a way that makes the product more appealing to the customer and convinces them that they need the product. Online, your product pages serve as the suave salesperson and their job is to compel a website visitor to buy. 

Why Is Product Page Optimization Essential? 

It’s important to implement a product page implementation strategy because these pages are crucial for making sales. By improving your product pages, you can boost conversion rates and enhance your credibility. 

A good product page offers a clear sense of what your customers will get from you. The words and images you select and how you choose to display them help you set customer expectations. If your product pages match your brand quality, then your customers will likely be satisfied. Adding features to your product pages including descriptions, how-to videos, and social proof can also help you stand out from your competition. 

Optimized product pages also improve your search engine optimization (SEO), which makes it easier for you to reach the customers who need your merch. 

9 Tips To Optimize Product Pages for High Conversions

So how do you turn those proven sales techniques into product pages that convert? Try these tips on your e-commerce site. 

1. Make Your Product Pages SEO-Friendly

The first step in optimizing your product pages is to improve SEO. People can’t shop with you if you’re not popping up in their search results. By building SEO into your product content optimization strategy, you can improve your search engine rankings.  

Conduct Content Audits and Keyword Research

A content audit is an analysis of your landing pages and product descriptions to improve the user experience. Running a content audit on your product pages will help you assess your current SEO position and identify areas where you can improve. 

You may notice product descriptions that are out of date and need to be refreshed. Or you might notice that you could be using more impactful headlines to make sales. 

Do keyword research as part of your content audit. Make a list of the most relevant and valuable terms people might use to find your product on the internet. A content audit will also help you identify product pages that aren’t currently optimized. Make note of these areas and strategize where you can add keywords to improve SEO. 

Optimize Title Tags and Meta Descriptions 

SEO for e-commerce product pages involves working these keywords into your product titles, descriptions, and metadata descriptions to make your product more visible online. Look through your list of relevant keywords and incorporate them into your title tags and meta descriptions where it makes sense. 

Follow SEO best practices for product pages. Keep your titles and meta descriptions short yet compelling. You want to write meta-tags that inspire people to click on your product to learn more. Consider this sample meta description for a riding lawn mower: 

“Spending your weekends mowing when you should be relaxing? XYZ riding lawn mower to the rescue!”

This meta description includes the keyword “riding lawn mower.” It fits within the 155-character limit and offers a distinct benefit a potential customer could receive by purchasing the product. 

Leverage Product Title Optimization

Once you’ve perfected your tags and meta descriptions, move on to your product titles. Your titles should be detailed enough to set customer expectations but short enough to compel them to click your product before their attention wanders. 

Product titles are one of the most important components of your descriptions because they're one of the few aspects of your website people see in a pay-per-click ad. Use a website analytics tool such as Google Analytics 4 to find out which search queries people are using to find your products. 

You may find that people are looking for your brand name. In this case, you would add your brand name to your product titles to appeal to people who are looking for you. If not, place your brand name at the end of your title instead. 

Optimized product titles usually include brand, product type, size, color, and material. Place the information in the order that matters most to your audience. For example, if you sell denim, you might use the title: “Women’s dark wash bootcut jeans” to appeal to people who don’t know your brand. Or if your brand is well known, you might write: “Women’s Levi’s button fly dark wash jeans.” 

Consider Breadcrumb Navigation for User Experience

Breadcrumb navigation refers to website design that allows users to jump through various levels of your site instantly based on their interests. You can create location-based breadcrumbs that show users where they are in your website’s hierarchy. Many e-commerce sites use this feature by including a list of categories at the top of their product pages to allow users to look at other similar products. 

For example, if you’re looking for men’s coats on a department store website, you may see a line at the top of the product page that says Men/Clothing/Outerwear. As a customer, you can easily navigate to compare coats or you can go back to men’s clothing and look at other items to pair with your new coat. 

You can also build attribute-based breadcrumb trails. When you’re looking through a department store’s website, this type of breadcrumb trail would say Men/Coats & Jackets/Wool & Wool Blend.

Breadcrumb architecture compels people to spend more time on your page and makes it easier for them to buy more. It's useful for websites with complex architecture and multiple subpages. 

Optimize for Rich Snippets With Structured Data

Structured data helps you stand out from the competition and boosts organic traffic to your website. Rich snippets are short pieces of rich content that appear in search engine results. Your rich snippets might include customer reviews, product images, or product features. 

For example, if you have an average 4.8-star rating based on 5,000 customer reviews, you can add a rich snippet that will populate this star rating on your page when it appears in someone’s Google search. 

Google offers a structured data marker helper you can use to optimize your product pages. You can also check your website builder to see if it offers tools that will help you add structured data and rich snippets to your product pages. 

Include an FAQs Section

One drawback of online shopping is that you lose the ability to handle a product. When you shop in the store, you can try on clothes. You can pick up accessories to see what they look like and how you might use them. You can touch appliances and ask a salesperson about their features. 

You can help customers reimagine this experience online by adding an FAQs section to your product pages. Compile the most frequently asked questions about your products and answer them below the product description. Optimize your on-page SEO for e-commerce by working keywords into your answers where it makes sense. Add links to detailed videos and other content that helps answer questions to help customers understand product features. 

Use Canonical Tags for Products in Multiple Categories

Canonical tags help Google and other search engines filter out duplicate content in search results. You may have a product that appears in multiple categories with different tags. If this product has multiple unique URLs, a search engine might flag it as two separate pages with the same content, which lowers your search engine ranking. 

Canonical tags tell Google and other search engines which URL serves as the master copy for your products. Once you’ve chosen which URL you want to be the master, simply tag it as “canonical” in your website builder. Doing this will make search engines ignore other versions of your product page that may be tagged in multiple categories. 

Reduce Page Load Times

When a page takes forever to load, it can hinder the user experience and cause your bounce rates to soar. A response time of just three seconds can cause your bounce rate to increase by 32%. Anyone who was alive during the dial-up era remembers waiting 20 minutes for a page to load, but today’s customer is impatient. Reduce your load times to boost your conversion rates. 

Use a performance measurement tool to assess your website. The results will tell you which parts of your site are taking the longest to load. Some of these tools also offer optimization tips to help your pages load faster. 

2. Create Clear and Visible Calls to Action (CTAs) 

Clear and visible CTAs motivate your customer to take action. An actionable, compelling CTA could make the difference between someone making a purchase or leaving your site. Only use one CTA per product, and make it a good one. If you’ve written a good product description outlining the benefits of your product, a simple “add to bag” may be good enough. 

You could make the customer an offer by displaying other products that would complement the one in your customer’s cart. In this call to action, you could write, “Buy them both to get free shipping.” 

Whatever you write in your CTA, it should be clear and the CTA button should stand out. If you have an “Add to Cart” button, make it darker to stand out against the rest of your product description. 

3. User-Compelling Product Images and Include Product Variants

High-quality images make it easier for customers to visualize your products and how they would fit with the customer’s lifestyle. They also make you seem more credible and professional. The best product images are simple and highlight product features. 

Most of the time, you'll see a product shot on a white background so nothing else is competing for the viewer's attention. Some cool product pages will showcase people using the product in real-world scenarios. If you go this route, keep the set simple and make sure the product stands out.

If you offer multiple variants of a product, include all versions of the product on your page. If you’ve ever shopped for clothing online, you may have seen a carousel of images that show the product in multiple colors. Some companies also show an item of clothing in different sizes on models with various body types to help people visualize how it'll look on them.

4. Follow Best Practices When Writing Product Descriptions

A talented product description writer understands how to write product descriptions that appeal to your ideal buyer. Best practices for product descriptions include highlighting your product’s features as benefits to your buyer and avoiding clichéd language. 

To nail product detail optimization, you need to understand what makes people buy from you versus a competitor and highlight it in your descriptions. As a product description example, let's say you sell organic baby formula. You might highlight how your product is a complete amino-acid-based formula well-tolerated in babies with food sensitivities. You might also state how your formula meets a growing baby’s dietary needs. Consider Amazon product descriptions that often use bulleted lists to highlight product features as benefits. Don't forget to keep your product descriptions consistent with your brand voice to create a cohesive user experience. 

5. Increase Conversions With Relatable Content

Product content optimization is one of the many ways to solidify your brand image with customers. Post aspirational content that shows your ideal customer and how your product has improved their lives. Aspirational content isn’t limited to videos of people living a life of luxury while using your products. Figure out what appeals to your customers. 

Your ideal audience might consist of working parents who want to spend more time with their children. In this case, you might post content with tips on how to free up your schedule to spend more time with your family. For example, if you’re selling a line of reusable, compartmentalized shopping bags, you might feature a video showing how to be organized while grocery shopping and cut down on your time shopping and unpacking. 

Content marketing for e-commerce helps you connect with your audience through shared experiences and commonalities. Capture your audience with testimonials and success stories to show potential customers what is possible. 

6. Back up Your Products and Claims With Social Proof

People want to know they can trust you to deliver what you’re selling. There is a reason “What I ordered vs. What I got” posts go viral — and not in a good way. Use social proof to build a trusting relationship with your customers. 

Include Reviews at the Top of the Page

The majority of customers read reviews before they make purchases online. If you have great customer reviews, put them front and center to boost your credibility. Positive reviews can build your reputation as a trusted brand. They also help potential buyers get a better sense of how your products work. 

Share User-Generated Content

If your customers are posting about you on social media, share it. User-generated content can increase your click-through rates by 400%. Common user-generated content includes user reviews, selfies, and product videos. 

Encourage your customers to tag you in their social media posts by including your handles on shipping receipts. If you use branded hashtags, include a card with the product that features the hashtag and ask customers to use it. 

Leverage Expert Testimonials

Featuring expert testimonials can improve your reputation as an industry leader. Experts can also improve your credibility and highlight your product’s quality. Imagine selling a line of hair care products and getting a testimonial from a well-known stylist with decades of experience in the industry. 

Potential customers can trust that this stylist understands why your product line offers great quality. You can get these by building relationships within your industry and approaching experts in your field. 

7. Increase Average Order Value With Upselling and Cross-Selling Tactics

Use product feed optimization to upsell and cross-sell to your existing customers. When a customer logs into your site, show them a product feed full of recommended products based on their previous likes and purchases.

Other cross-selling tactics include showing pictures of what other customers bought and offering discounted rates for bundled merchandise. Or you can show customers other items during the checkout process that will allow them to qualify for free shipping. 

8. Use Trust Signals To Help Potential Customers Feel Safe

Customers don’t want to buy from a sketchy website, so they need cues to help them feel safe. As part of e-commerce product page optimization, make sure each product page includes a link to your contact information, return policy, and social media feeds. 

You can simply include a button with a link to your return policy instead of repeating information on every product page. Make sure it’s prominent enough that people can find it easily and access the details if they have concerns. Be sure to keep your customer service information up to date. 

Including your contact phone number and email address at the foot of your website is a great way to show customers you are a trustworthy seller. If it’s not at the foot of your site, make sure it’s easy to find in your navigation menu. 

9. Include Your Customers’ Preferred Payment Methods

A complicated checkout process is one of the main reasons people abandon their carts without making a purchase. Make it easier for them by including the most common and preferred payment methods. 

Most customers like paying with credit and debit cards followed by digital wallets from companies including PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Digital wallets are appealing because they auto-populate shipping information and keep customers from having to make an account on your website. 

If you’re worried about the potential costs of offering multiple payment methods, consider using a comprehensive e-commerce platform to host your online shop. Many of these platforms allow you to build payment methods into your store and may cover fees as part of your overall subscription price. 

How To Measure the Effectiveness of Your Product Pages

One of the most reliable methods of measuring product page effectiveness is conversion rate. Use your website host or Google Analytics to see this information. This number will show you the percentage of website visitors who purchased from your website. But it’s not the only statistic you should measure. 

You should also monitor your add-to-cart button to see if you’re attracting your target audience to your website and compelling them to consider shop[ping with you. If your add-to-cart rate is on the low side for certain products, run a keyword analysis and make note of ways in which you can optimize your product page.

Cart abandonment will show you how many people thought about shopping with you but left before completing the purchase. If your cart abandonment rate is high, your product pages may be working well, but your checkout process might be the problem. Test out your checkout process to see if you can pinpoint the issue. 

When you see a high cart abandonment rate, you can also experiment with retargeting ads and other marketing tactics to entice customers to come back and finish their transactions. 

Key Takeaways

Product page optimization is crucial for helping you show up in SERPs and attract customers to your page. From SEO for e-commerce product pages to content optimization, these techniques can make it easier for people to find you online and solidify your brand image as a preferred shop. 

You can optimize your product pages by thinking like your customers and writing product descriptions that appeal to their needs. Help people find you with on-page SEO for e-commerce and use tools such as calls to action and product images to inspire your customers to make a purchase. 

Once you understand how to put it all together, you can create an e-commerce site that is highly trafficked and does high-volume sales.