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Well hello there! Catherine Langman here with you on the Productpreneur Success Podcast! Welcome to the show if you’re a new listener, and welcome back if you’re a long-time listener!
Today’s episode is going to be a bit of a mini-training episode designed to help you increase your sales conversions on your online store.
Specifically, we’re going to talk about what difference a well designed Ecommer Product Page can actually make to your sales conversions.
Whether you’re new to eCommerce and needing to set up your first website, or you’ve been running for a while and might be considering making some changes or improvements, it’s worth stopping to think about what difference it potentially makes when it comes to your product pages.
Because your product pages are kinda the last opportunity to be persuasive and influence add-to-carts.
On the flip side, an ill considered product page will definitely hurt you in terms of how many prospects add to cart.
But I see many many brands who just rely on their theme template here, without thinking about how influential this page can be.
They’re not considering things like product titles, descriptions, images, or other opportunities on this page that could be very simple tweaks to increase conversions.
Instead, these brands are relying on trying to drive as much traffic to their website as possible, or hustling hard on social media, without stopping to notice how well their product pages are actually converting or taking the time to try and improve them.
This is something that my team and I spend time on for our clients as part of our advertising packages. We’ll be measuring conversion rates on these product landing pages and looking for the opportunities to optimise them.
Because the more conversions you can get and the higher the average order value, then the bigger the return on investment on your advertising spend.
Now, before we dive further into this episode, though, I want to invite you to take my free website assessment quiz.
Basically – this quiz is designed to help you identify the #1 problem impacting your online store, and what you should focus on next so that you can fix it and start growing!
(Even if you feel like you’ve tried everything!)
This is for you if you’re running an online store but struggling to generate enough sales, or achieve consistent growth, and you’re just not sure what you should focus on to move forwards again. So you can take this FREE assessment to find out the best way to increase your eCommerce sales, based on your own unique situation and where you’re at right now in your business.
To take the free website assessment, just head to catherinelangman.com/assessment
Alrighty – without further ado, let’s dive into the episode and cover the 9 essential elements of a high converting product page.
The 9 essential elements of a converting product page
I’m going to use an example from an Aussie eCommerce superstar, Mister Jones Health, which I think does a brilliant job with their product pages, along with some examples of a handful of other clients that we work with as well.
First, let’s look at what elements are or should be on your product pages.
You need to keep the content on your product pages clear and simple. This page should reinforce to your website visitor that they are in the right place.
Above the fold (do you know what that means?) you want to have the images, a clear product title, the price, the most important product benefit (I like to put the product value statement here), maybe a short positive customer testimonial, and a very simple add to cart process.
1. The Product Title
The product title needs to quickly and easily communicate what the product is and, ideally, what benefits the customer will experience and love.
For example: Sleep Tight, the supplement by Mister Jones.
Or, from Cozigo: “CoziGo – sleep & sun protection cover for all strollers & airline cots”.
2. The Short Description
Next, the short product description: don’t be boring here and literally just describe what the product is. Boring features and logic won’t inspire anyone to take action.
We need to appeal to our customers’ emotional side of their brain, which means writing short, snappy product value statements.
For example: For a better night’s sleep, Sleep Tight supports your stress response, skin health, digestion, immunity and energy.
Who doesn’t want to experience any of that? Incidentally, a product category like vitamin supplements is very tightly regulated here in Australia by the Therapeutic Goods Association, so a brand like Mister Jones can’t just write whatever they like. They can’t be seen to promise or guarantee a particular health outcome or result.
Here’s another example, a fun one from French Soda: “Fisherman? Fashionista? Do it all in this awesome yellow raincoat for kids! I’m bright and cheerful and you definitely won’t lose me in a crowd!”
3. Product Images
When it comes to photographs of your products – please try and include a mix of lifestyle shots and product shots. Customers need to be able to see themselves using the products, which is where the images of your product in use by real people in real situations comes into play, plus they also need to see the detail of the product, which is where the product shots are important.
You want to use 5-7 images, all looking like they belong to your brand in terms of the look and feel or styling, and all cropped to the same square size.
For example: Mister Jones only have one image with any human element in it and the rest are beautifully designed to communicate benefits. Part of me can’t help feeling like another image with a human in it would help here, but there may be a TGA restriction against doing so.
Or take another look at French Soda’s product page with the gorgeous fun images.
4. The Action Button
Next, the add to cart button itself should be in a contrasting colour to the other elements on the page, and the call to action text on the button (buy now, add to cart), should be very easy to understand.
This makes it clear to the customer what they need to do next in order to complete the purchase.
Mister Jones has a solid black Add to Bag button on their site, which is a colour very much in their brand colour palette but you also can’t miss it as it stands out from the largely white and pastel colour palette of the rest of the page.
Or look at Babiators.net.au who use a bright turquoise colour for their Add to Cart button so that it really stands out and makes it clear to the customer where they need to click to progress to the next stage of their purchase.
5. The Trust Signals
If you have any product guarantee or flat rate shipping, you want to state these on this page too. This, along with trust icons like common payment methods and star review ratings, helps to remove any perceived risk for the customer.
This can be where a lot of online stores end with their product pages, but if that’s the case then you’re missing out on some key pieces of content that are hugely influential in terms of consumer psychology.
6. The Product Details
In a nutshell, you want to cover the following:
- Your detailed product description – this is where your persuasive product descriptions go.
- Product features (remember, the product features aren’t the compelling language that drive sales, BUT they do need to be on the page so that people know exactly what they can get).
- Any sizing instructions so that customers can work out what will be the right size for them.
But when it comes to how you present this detailed information, you need to be really mindful of the user experience, particularly if your customers are browsing your website on their mobile phone. Which most are these days.
I see a lot of brands – even many who are big – have really long chunks of written content under their add to cart button.
I get that many products do require the need to communicate detailed information, sometimes technical information.
But long chunks of text are really hard to read and the salient facts then get missed.
We don’t want to deter the right customers from adding to cart or buying, so we need to present the detail in a user-friendly way.
As you can see on Mister Jones Health, they’re using tabs under the add to cart button, to break the content up into easy to read chunks.
For example:
Detailed description in one tab.
Ingredients or use and care instructions in another tab.
“Will this fit me?” or a demo video might be in another tab.
Shipping and returns info might be in another.
Here’s another example on Birdsnest’s website.
You don’t want to overwhelm customers with too much information here either – 3 tabs is probably plenty.
7. The USP’s
Other elements you can add right below the tabs include:
USP or benefit icons, which help to communicate the benefits that are most important to your customers in a quick-to-understand visual way.
You’ve probably seen these before, like the ones on Mister Jones Health where they have icons to communicate Vegan Friendly, Crafted by Naturopaths, and Australian Made.
8. The Social Proof
Incorporating real customer reviews is a hugely influential component of your product page content.
Incidentally, research shows that 1 review is better than 0, 2, 3 or 4 reviews, but 5 or more reviews out-performs 1 review. Customer reviews provide social proof, which is incredibly influential and helps new customers to feel more comfortable about making their purchase decision.
Present your verified customer reviews in a ‘What Customers Say’ section, preferably as verified by an app like Judge.Me or Stamped.io as these not only add an extra layer of credibility because they’re verified by an external source, but they will also dynamically or automatically update on your website as new reviews are shared.
9. The Upsell
And then, you also want to consider how you can cross sell or upsell here as well.
This can be in the form of a ‘subscribe and save’ offer with a small discount, a ‘customers love these together’ bundle that customers can add to cart from the same product page, a ‘Recommended Products’ section towards the end of the product page, or an up-sell app that offers complimentary products in a popup form after the customer has added the first item to cart.
Final word…
At the end of the day, what you really want to remember is that the primary goal of your product page is to get the prospect to buy your product.
Which sounds completely obvious I know!
So in a nutshell, here are 4 things I want you to take away from today’s episode so you can influence your website visitors to be more likely to buy and therefore increase your sales conversions online:
- BE SIMPLE AND CLEAR WITH THE SALES PITCH: Don’t waffle, write long-winded or unnecessary copy and don’t use jargon.
- OVERCOME FINAL OBJECTIONS: Social proof, USP’s, trust signals and guarantees help achieve this.
- CROSS-SELL AND/OR UPSELL: Give customers the option to add an additional product or accessory, subscribe to receive regular shipments, upgrade to a bigger size or even a bundle.
- GET THE “ADD TO CART” CLICK!: Maximise your chances of getting the sale by choosing a button colour that stands out on the page.
Hopefully you’ve found this episode helpful today. But remember, a change in your results will only come from taking action and implementing what you learn.
And in that regard, you really only have 3 choices: figure it out alone via trial and error, learn from someone else who already knows how to do it, or outsource it.
Each is a valid choice, and each will take varying lengths of time.
If you’d like to speed up the process of learning or implementing and getting results faster, please reach out to me because there are a variety of ways I can help you depending on the stage of business you’re at.
This is what my team and I do and love to do every single day. Whether you’re looking for coaching to help you to learn and implement these things, or if you’re looking for a team of experts to outsource to, just head over to catherinelangman.com/work-with-me to find out about working with me.
That’s it for today’s episode and I hope you’ve enjoyed it. If you did, I’d be forever grateful if you’d share it with one or two of your business besties. Especially if you know they’re looking to grow their brand or eCommerce store this year. It’s super easy to share – just click on the icon next to the podcast on whichever platform you listen to it, copy the share link and then send it in a message to your friends.
But now – have a fabulous day and week and I’ll be back on the show with you again next week!