The average online shopper has a shorter attention span than ever before. A recent study shows that most visitors to websites spent less than 15 seconds before leaving. So what does this mean for you? It means that your product pages have just a few moments to draw in your visitors and persuade them to spend more time reading about your merchandise or services before they decide that their attention is best spent somewhere else.
What can you do to make sure that visitors are interested enough to keep reading? Here’s a checklist of best practices to make sure your pages can attract and maintain your visitors’ attention, so you can convert them into customers.
Your Checklist For Great Product Pages
- Metadata Description. The first step towards attracting visitors is making sure they’re able to find you in the first place. The meta description is a short description of the page’s contents, slightly longer than the length of a Tweet, that lets search engines know what’s on the page. Use search terms and action verbs, such as “shop” or “browse,” to entice searchers to click on your link. While your keywords won't deliver any SEO value here – search engines don't scan them the same way they do on-page content – they will signal that the browser has found what he or she is looking for and improve click-through rates from the results page.
- Attention-Grabbing Multimedia. Once they’ve clicked your page, pictures of your product are an easy way to keep a visitor’s attention. Add photos from every angle, or even a 360° view, and if the item is available in multiple colors, try to make sure that potential buyers can see what each one looks like. Video of the product in use is another great way to maintain interest while keeping them on your site longer. By providing great visuals, you're replicating the confidence built by handling products in a brick-and-mortar store, all without the shopper having to leave their couch.
- Unique Product Descriptions. If you’re trying to attract visitors to your site, having the same product copy as all of your competitors just isn’t acceptable. While Google doesn’t technically penalize duplicate content, they won't reward it either. Unique descriptions that add value and stand on their own will almost always rank higher than boilerplate descriptions that have been used on dozens of other websites. This is in part why rich product data is so important. It lets you infuse each description with the information consumers desire and make every page unique.
- Trust-Building Reviews. Potential buyers want to know that they’re receiving value for their purchases. How can you reassure them? Product reviews are an easy way to engage visitors. Reviews can let other potential buyers know which features of a product work exactly as stated, and they can also let others know where the product falls short of expectations. Nobody expects perfection from an item, but knowing the details before purchase can go a long way toward keeping customers satisfied.
- Fast Load Times. As already noted, online shoppers typically don’t spend much time on a single page, and if that page doesn’t load right away, visitors are as good as gone. Anywhere from 40% to 60% of shoppers will simply close your page if it doesn’t load within two seconds, and Google has stated that load speeds are a consideration in rankings, especially in mobile searches. And if you woo browsers with rapid load speed, they'll be more inclined to stick around and absorb all of your product assets, from attributes to images. Bottom line? Make sure that your site has the performance needed to keep shoppers browsing at the pace they want.
- Easy-To-See Shopping Cart. The end result that you’re looking for is turning shoppers into buyers, so make it as easy as possible for visitors to add items to their virtual cart. Make the “Add To Cart” button a bolder color that’s separate from the rest of the page, and place it in a convenient location at the top or bottom of the page, so users can click it with minimal scrolling. A wish list is another way to engage shoppers. While obviously not as good as a sale, adding items to a wish list at least lets you remind visitors to check back into your site, and it can provide you with an e-mail address or other contact point to add to your list.
- Social Media Sharing. We’re all connected more than ever, and many buyers will be excited to share their new purchase with people in their network. Adding buttons that make it easy to show off their new items on social media sites can help maintain the thrill that many shoppers feel when buying, and it can also draw more visitors to your site.
Do Your Product Pages Stand Out?
The online retail arena is a crowded one, so it's imperative that every product page exceeds customer expectations and delivers all the information needed to make an informed purchase. And while all these techniques will improve the e-commerce user experience and win you loyal fans, it's essential that they're backed with accurate, verified product data. Without strong product data management practices, you'll lack the information, images and other assets required to build the kind of pages that shoppers demand.
Thinking about improving your product data management, but not sure where to start? Virtucom Group's managed item onboarding service helps ensure that every product description page is populated with consistent, correct information with no additional hassle for you. Get in touch today and we'll be happy to review your needs and find a solution that works for you.
About Virtucom Group
Data integrity, time to market and increased conversions are vital to all e-commerce retailers. Our product data management and unique content creation program ensures consistent product names, robust product descriptions, complete and accurate product attributes and an array of digital assets are at your disposal, providing time to market and quality improvements that will outpace your fiercest competition. Contact our team and get started with Virtucom Group today.