Product pages are the most important element of any ecommerce site, as it’s where your customers make that all important purchase. But unfortunately, they are regularly neglected when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Whilst you’ll no doubt be optimising your product pages for user experience, you should also be putting just as much effort into product page SEO.
Luckily for larger ecommerce sites, there are a few simple product page SEO best practices you can implement to these all important web pages that can dramatically improve your conversion rates, as we explore below.
Focus on your URL
Your URL is one of the most important parts of SEO, and this applies to your product pages too. Not only does the URL signify what the page is about to search engines, but it can also have an effect on the click-through rate (CTR) to your page, and subsequently, your product page conversion rate.
If you perform an online search for a product, you’ll more than likely see the majority of ecommerce sites opting for a short URL, and this can improve your CTR. The result of a long URL runs the risk of damaging your CTR, as it provides an uncertainty as to what the page is about. Long URLs with random characters also look untidy, which can impact the decision of the user at the search engine level.
Ensure you keep your product page URL short, sweet and to the point, and try to include relevant keywords to further improve your rankings.
Think carefully about your product title
Believe it or not, there are a number of different tactics you can adopt for your product title, and it’s important to think carefully which one is right for you. One of these tactics is to include your brand name within the title. This strategy works if you have a highly recognisable brand name as it allows you to target your desired audience. However, if you’re lesser known, you may need to include a little more to convince users to visit your website.
Another tactic is to incorporate certain words within your product title to help encourage trust. For example, including words such as ‘genuine’ and ‘real’ are words that customers might be looking for for certain products. You could also include words such as ‘Shop Now’ or ‘Iconic’ to specifically encourage a conversion or a response (such as a click) from a user.
Whatever you choose to include in your product title, be cautious about the length of your title. An overly long title can cause your brand name to be cut off in search engine results and can also look untidy. Be sure to also keep customer trust at the forefront of your mind as this ultimately helps improve your product page conversion rate.
Incorporate high quality images to showcase your product
Now that you have a user on your page, you need to convince them to buy your product. In order to do this, it is important to have high quality images of your product, showcasing the different features available.
A comprehensive visual representation of your product is essential in helping the user along the “customer journey”. By showing them all your product has to offer, they’re able to make a well-informed choice. Images are an easy way to show off your product, and allow the customer to gain a better understanding of what makes your product the better option compared to your competitors.
You’ll also want to implement basic product page optimisation to your images in the form of adding image alt-tags for accessibility and resizing your images for site speed purposes for example.
Provide a clear and engaging product description
A clear and engaging description should be available to any customer that wants more information after seeing your product. This should include everything that your customer needs to know about the product before purchasing, such as sizings, colours, fit, features, and materials for example.
Far from just providing a block of text, you need to make the information easily accessible, to improve your chance of a conversion. For example, you could split all of the relevant information into different sections, so it’s easy for your customers to find the details they need.
Here are some important things to consider when creating product descriptions:
- Unique descriptions – each product should have its own unique description. As well as helping with SEO, this tailors all of the information to each specific product. With the most relevant information for each product, a conversion is more likely.
- Don’t use manufacturer descriptions – this can be a double edged sword. By using manufacturer descriptions you are implementing duplicate content on your product page, which is bad for SEO and user experience.
- Keep it short and snappy – unlike your informational pages (such as the blog), you want to provide the details as clearly as possible. Don’t make your customers trawl through paragraphs of text to get to the information they want.
- Get creative – if you’re in a competitive market, chances are your product description is very similar to your competitors’. Think outside the box to present your product information in an interesting way.
Don’t be afraid to use product videos
A creative way of presenting descriptions on your product page is through product videos. As we said with the images, buyers respond more to visual elements on a page, so a product video will help increase conversions.
Be mindful that product videos might not work for every industry, so it’s important to consider whether this would work for your products. If you sell a technical product, it’s a perfect way to showcase how it works. If you sell clothing, this could also work for you as you can showcase how your product fits – ASOS is a great example of this.
If a customer is fully aware of how your product works and how easy it is to use, they are further along the customer journey and more likely to convert.
Implement a review section to your product pages
Sharing your reviews is the final tool in the arsenal of product page optimisation. If a user has seen all of the above, and still needs convincing that your product is for them, other users’ reviews may be all that is needed to sway them.
Customers trust one thing more than anything when looking to purchase something – other users’ opinions. By implementing a review section within your product pages, you offer customers the option to offer their opinions on your products, thus improving the chances of further conversions.
Let us help with your product page SEO
We’ve worked with countless ecommerce websites to successfully optimise their product pages for SEO, which in turn has seen their conversion rate soar. If you own an ecommerce business and you need help with your product page SEO, get in touch with us today. Our digital marketing experts will provide you with practical advice that we can implement on your behalf to help boost your click-through rate and more importantly, your conversions.