Six Easy Steps to Optimizing Your Product Page

Do you dream of launching a top-selling product online? Then it's time to begin creating a product page that stands out from the pack. Optimizing your product page should be a core component of your Internet marketing strategy.

#1 Keep Product Pages Informative

Create positive consumer experiences with your brand by producing informative, hype-free product detail pages. Your products will sell and your fan base will grow if you simply tell it like it is. To make this happen you need to:

• Stay Honest. Describe what the product does and the benefits it's designed to bring the consumer. Creating false expectations will lead to poor consumer experiences and negative reviews.
• Stay Informative. Remember the ROPO effect (Research Online, Purchase Offline). Consider your product pages to be your 24/7 sales reps and supply them with information that they can use.
• Avoid Exaggeration and Superlatives. Don't use the "greatest," "strongest," "biggest," or any other "est"s. If your product can't walk the talk, walk that product page right off the plank. (For guidance on how to effectively do this, consult with the Disney executive who OK'ed the making of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.)
• Avoid ALL CAPS and Exclamation Points!!!
  
• Keep Your Product Page Advertisement Free. Most online shoppers consider image quality when deciding whether or not to purchase from a specific site. Your images should not be extensions of your advertising campaigns; they should show your product from multiple angles and in real-life situations. No Kardashian-style publicity stunts, no Photoshopped special effects, no "As Seen on Oprah" banners.

Read our blog post about creating informative product pages.

#2 Write a Compelling Introduction

Arguably, the most important content that you create for your product detail pages is the first 150 words. Make sure your web content provider writes accurate and concise introductions for your product descriptions. If your content doesn't deliver immediately, visitors will leave in 2 to 3 seconds. Even worse, sloppy, inaccurate introductions fall victim to the content merchandising version of the Butterfly Effect, leading to poor sales and high return rates. Make sure your first 150 words include this essential information:

• The name of your product
• What it does
• How it will benefit the consumer

There is no plug-in that will help you. No software or JavaScript to install. This step involves employing a native English writer to put pen to paper and tell it like it is. Read our blog post about writing a compelling introduction.

#3 Tell Buyers What's in the Box

Are batteries included? Spare parts? Does the product come pre-assembled, or at least with comprehensible assembly instructions? Inadequate box content descriptions lead to bad customer experiences, returns, and negative reviews. All of that unpleasantness is easy to avoid if you give your packaging contents special treatment. Not only should your copywriters treat your "in the box" content as royalty--they should also go out of their way to make clear in your product detail content what the consumer can expect NOT to get when Mr. Brown rings the bell. Let them know they'll need to pick up four C batteries ahead of time or that they'll need to set aside a big chunk of their Saturday to assemble the kids' new slot car racetrack. Read our blog post about the importance of telling consumers what's in the box.

#4 Spell Out the User Benefits

Simply listing product features is not enough. To increase consumer confidence, you should also explain in detail what your product is designed to do. It's the user benefits in combination with the product features that lift conversion.

It's a simple equation: The first half of the sentence lists the features, and the second half, starting with "which offers," converts those features to user benefits. It won't cost much to do, and that added piece of content will increase consumer confidence and boost sales. This works especially well when trying to explain technical detail about a product. Here's an example of how content26 would describe torque, of interest when shopping for power tools like cordless drills:

Compact motor delivers 400 in. lbs. of maximum torque, making it ideal for many construction tasks, including drilling into hardwoods, metal, and concrete.

Read our blog post about incorporating user benefits into your product descriptions.

#5 Use Enticing Product Images

If you're in e-commerce, you probably already know that an image can be worth a thousand (and more) sales. Images can be your product page's most valuable proselytizer. Just as your intro paragraph can entice your reader into a further study of your product, your images, when done properly, can convert casual browsers into serious shoppers. Well-designed product pages with good images invite consumers to read more. In the long tail of the marketing world, this type of conversion can be just as valuable as making the immediate sale. Think sensually. You want your product page to appeal to the fullest range of senses possible, similar to the way a chef carefully arranges colors and food types in his or her presentation. Read our blog post about using powerful product images.

#6 Include Bullets

No respectable product page is complete without a bulleted list that succinctly sums up the most important features and benefits of the product. There will always be those of us with short-term memories who read the copy, are on the verge of buying, forget whether the copy said it worked with our smartphone's newest OS update, try to research that, get distracted by something else ... and there goes a sale. Bullets also create some white space, giving your stellar copy room to breathe. Read our blog post about creating effective bulleted lists.

Summary

Remember, an attractive, informative product page serves as the basis of any successful Internet marketing strategy. Taking our own advice, we created an infographic of a top-selling online product to show you how to combine all of the steps in this tutorial. Click on the image below to view a full-size version of the graphic and to explore the different parts of a successful product page.