Are you an e-commerce business owner who often wonders why having a great product is no longer enough to keep your business afloat? In a world where you can push your brand to greater reach and sell your goods to customers that specifically need your product, shouldn’t it be easier for you to get your product across?
With so much fierce competition going on in e-commerce businesses, you’ll need much more than just a great product. Yeap, you’ve guessed it. Digital marketing is the key! And that includes beautifying and optimising your product listings on your e-commerce platforms, which are often overlooked by many online sellers.
Why should you optimise product listings on your e-commerce platforms?
Imagine walking in a marketplace where there are more than dozens of shops selling the products or services you’re looking for. It’s much likelier that you’d judge all the shops at a glance and select the ones with the most appealing billboard than spend all your time entering them one by one.
Similarly, most online shoppers would skim each e-commerce shop that they find and purchase from the one that appeals to them most. This is why increasing your e-commerce’s online visibility by optimising your product listing is an essential determiner of your success rate in attracting customers for your online selling.
How can you create attractive product listings?
Your product listing page (AKA Product Detail Page or PDP) is one of the most important parts of your online business. How you optimise your listing page can often make or break your sales.
But don’t worry! In this article, we’ve already listed out all the elements that are essential for your Product Detail Pages and how you can utilise them to their fullest potential to attract more online customers.
#1. Images
An attractive image is vital to a successful product listing page because they are the first thing your customers will see when they’re looking through your PDPs.
A high-quality image of your product will not only help your listing stand out – it’ll also assure your customers that you’re not some shady scam shop.
Eye-catching product images often attract customers’ attention and have them take a proper look at your product listings instead of a simple skim and scan. If you’re producing your own product images, ensure that:
- You use a high-resolution camera and a clean background for your photo sessions.
- Display your products from various angles: Close-ups, side angles, context shots, and more.
Make use of free stock images where applicable to enhance your product photos.
Additional tricks! It’s highly recommended that you take the time to pick up specific keywords that highlights your product’s unique selling prepositions (USPs). Then, you should have these keywords texts edited in your product image to catch your customers’ attention at first glance.
#2. Videos
Product videos are another way to feature your product. They allow viewers to have a more interactive experience while shopping. A high-resolution video could give your customers a clearer visualisation of how the product will look and feel while teaching them how to use it via an easy-to-understand medium.
With a product video, your Product Details Page is now an engaging platform that provides a more in-depth look into your product’s features. There are many ways to create engaging product videos, but to cut it short, you’ll need to make sure that you:
- Keep your video short and straight to the point.
- Highlight your product’s USPs and benefits.
- Invest in an affordable external smartphone microphone for better audio.
- Provide subtitles for clearer product information.
#3. Product descriptions
Product descriptions are where your customers learn all about your products. From features to benefits to uses, product descriptions help them understand how your products solve their problems and why they are worth buying.
In addition to being helpful to customers, product descriptions also serve a more technical purpose – to help Google or any other search engine understand your product. By identifying and adding keywords to your product description, you can leverage Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to improve your PDP’s rank and visibility to potential customers.
So how do you craft an excellent product description that attracts, educates, and converts customers? You’ll need to:
- Use simple and concise language.
- Highlight your product’s USPs and how it solves your customer’s problems.
- Use bullet points to break down these features (like how we’re doing!)
- Include product specifications.
#4. Product reviews
Product reviews are actually one of the most important components of your PDP. In fact, having a large number of reviews and a good rating could actually be all you’d need to convince a buyer of your product.
However, good reviews are much more difficult to achieve, as they are the result of good overall customer experiences. If even a single part of your customer’s experience was unsatisfactory, you’re more likely to receive a negative review (and a negative impact on your business).
In addition, even if your customers are mostly satisfied, they are unlikely to leave a review unless prompted. This is why it is essential to create reminders or incentives to get good reviews. Here are some best practices to encourage your customers to leave product reviews:
- Send review reminders and encouragements to leave reviews after receiving them.
- Incorporate creative ways to get honest feedback for your products.
- Respond to both positive and negative reviews promptly and with grace.
- Provide impeccable and friendly customer service.
- Genuinely review the feedback for improvement and make it known when you take steps to improve.
#5. Product names
A memorable product name is just as important as your business tagline. However, there’s no need to get too creative: your product’s name should always be self-explanatory (if possible) and easy to remember.
Hence, make sure that your killer product name is:
- Memorable and easy to pronounce.
- Short and easy to remember.
- Not overused or overly generic.
- Descriptive enough to be understandable at first glance.
- EXTRA TIP! Keyword optimise product names for easy searching.
#6. Design and layout
The user-friendliness is an essential aspect of your PDP. Having a great layout to… well, lay out the various elements of your product page will play a significant part in hooking your customer’s attention and keeping them engaged.
Messy or cluttered layouts will discourage readers from continuing to explore your PDPs, reduce trust and even give a bad impression of your overall brand or shop.
On the other hand, a neat and clean layout will highlight all the important components, bring them together in a pleasing manner and allow viewers to find all the information they are looking for at a glance.
To create a user-friendly layout:
- Decide on a consistent colour scheme and typography that’s aligned with your brand tone and voice.
- Highlight your products’ unique features with bold fonts or icons.
- Utilise the whitespace to create a clean and simple outlook.
- Make your product listing a page that’s easy to read and navigate through.
Ultimately, the critical juncture about creating attractive product listings is to think out-of-the-box in ways that can make your PDPs look appealing yet precise and simple at the same time. Remember, step 0 is always to figure out what will catch the eyes of your target audience from their perspective before you start working your way to creating a PDP that can captivate their attention. Once you’ve got that done, you’ll have the real game-changer that drives sales for your e-commerce business!
