4 Best Practices For That Killer Product Category Page

Who wouldn’t love more traffic on their website? Only if it was that easy and straightforward. Online brands spend several hundreds of dollars to be first on search engines like Google and Bing.

But even before spending that kind of money, very few are able to get the expected results. Why is that? Turns out not many online stores have optimized pages on their website.

E-commerce brands are eager to increase their marketing spends but sometimes, they miss out on the basics.

Chances are most of the websites receive traffic from one of the product category or product pages. That provides an amazing opportunity to optimize these pages to improve website conversions.

Let’s take a look at some of the best practices for Product Category pages.

Table of Contents-

1. Be crystal clear with your message
2. Add high quality images
3. Make it easy for users to search
4. Aim for insanely quick page loading speed

Add a crystal clear message on your website. Make it very easy for people to understand your product and the value that it is going to add to their life.

Take advantage of the headline and sub headline hierarchy when you’re writing your copy. Use a headline, then sub headline and then copy to explain the value of your offer.

Use images, videos, or other visuals to help tell the story you want your audience to know about your product.

Another way is to start looking at competitors' sites and use them as inspiration. This can be an easy way to get started if you're unsure of what tone, language, and messaging will work best for your business.

A good rule of thumb is to create a value proposition that explains how your business solves customers' problems or helps them achieve their goals. This can help establish what makes your business unique, and will let potential customers know what they can expect when they click through to your site.

Mark and Spencer knows their audience well enough so that they are just in time to update their spring collection. If you look at the description, it promptly suggests that is spring time and also time to upgrade your wardrobe.

A picture is worth a thousand words. In today's world, it's also worth a thousand sales. High quality product images will differentiate and improve the perceived value of your products.

In fact, a recent study shows that 78% of consumers believe product images are "very important."

When given the choice between two similar products, 83% of respondents said they'd pick the one with better photos. With online shopping continuing to grow in popularity, buyers are spending more time viewing and evaluating product images.

We cannot stress enough on this one. Quality images have an instant appeal on visitors' mindset. A low quality image is going to adversely affect your sales.

Bonobos make sure that even the tiny details on their classic work pants are visible in photos. That’s a great first impression.

Almost all users don’t go browsing every single page of your online store to find the product that they need. They want to get what they need with minimal effort. Users should be able to search for products on your website easily, in not more than a couple of clicks.

In general, there are 4 main reasons why people need a search functionality on the website-

• Can I find what I am looking for?
• Am I getting the best price?
• Can I trust this store?
• Is it worth my time to buy from this store?

You have to keep in mind that the browsing experience is important because people want to get the best deal possible. This makes them susceptible to impulsive buying.

Add a easily visible search bar with an ability to search your entire product catalog. Let a potential customer find what they are looking for almost instantly.

There are also cases where users need more filters when they are looking for information. For example, it’s common to filter products by their price range or find all dresses with red color.

Page speed is a key ranking factor for search engines but it’s also important for a great user experience.

47% of online shoppers expect a page to load in under two seconds

41% will abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load

A 1 second delay in page response can result in a 9% reduction in conversions.

Slow websites lose users and revenue, so how can you improve page speed for your online store?

The simplest way to check the speed of your e-commerce store is by using Google's PageSpeed Insights tool. It analyzes the content of your web pages and evaluates what needs fixing. For example, images are often a common culprit of long load times, so Google may suggest optimizing them.

There may also be other factors which are out of your control, like the network connectivity of the user or the browser that they are using to view your website.

Make sure your page performance on Google Page insights is above 90 for optimal performance.

The most successful e-commerce sites allow shoppers to shop the way they prefer. Many sites have already changed the way their site is set up and with that, so will your competitors.

Be at the top of your game by optimizing product and category pages to boost your profits in the future.