Developing or following a great product page framework is a significant stride towards enhancing your e-commerce website. Especially with Christmas fast approaching. Now’s the time to review your website and ensure everything is in tip-top shape. So, your product page framework and SEO should be reviewed regularly.

If you develop a framework that ticks all the boxes and works, then listing new products is so much easier when it comes to time and working smarter, not harder. And I always say anything that makes a small business owner’s job easier is a step in the right direction. What do you think?

What makes a rockstar product page?

A rockstar product page has many components, each with a special role, so let’s examine the framework that will support your e-commerce store.

Product title

This is such a fun one, I think, and it’s an easy one as it’s generally the product name. But you want to take a moment to think about it, as you don’t want to be too literal and basic.

Consider what you can do to enhance your product title. Are there any words you can add that will make it more searchable, i.e., show up in the SERPs (search engine results pages) or be more descriptive?

Your page title is also one of two integral parts of the SERPs and is important for enticing potential customers to click through to your result over your competitor’s.

Product images

Such an essential part of an e-commerce store as your images must tell the whole story. Your customers don’t have the luxury of holding your product in their hands and being able to look at and examine it from every angle. Instead, they have to rely on your product images to see it all. So, small business owners become photographers, too, which can put a lot of pressure on you, can’t it? And customers have to place a lot of trust in your brand because they haven’t seen your product in real life. They’re just relying on your photos for an honest representation of what they’re buying.

While there will always be some variation and difference between a product photo and the real thing, it’s essential that you give your potential customers the most realistic buying experience possible. You don’t want to be the next viral social media story because of the epic fail compared to customer expectations regarding the size of your product.

You know what it feels like when you buy something online, and it arrives and doesn’t live up to the photos on the website. This often happens with clothing, paints, and jewellery, where it’s important to be specific and exact about the colour, shape, and cut of the product.

Image quality

Personally, product images drove me up the wall when I had an e-commerce website. But that was before you could use your smartphone to snap an amazing picture, too. It was digital cameras all the way back then, lol.

When it comes to product images for your e-commerce store, I can’t stress the importance of always ensuring you have high-quality, clear photos. This is especially true if you are going to utilise the zoom feature in your shop that most website platforms offer, like Shopify and WordPress, in conjunction with WooCommerce.

Lifestyle photos can add a captivating touch to your online store, inspiring potential customers to imagine your product in their lives. These images also serve as excellent content for your social media platforms, sparking creativity and engagement. Don’t underestimate the power of a well-crafted lifestyle photo!

And don’t forget to optimise your image file names and add your alt tags to help your SEO.

Image file names

Your image file names are a great boost to your SEO for product-based small businesses, as you can also rank in the image search function in search engines. This means you get a double opportunity to rank:

• normal SERPs
• image SERPs

So, put some thought and time into crafting the right keywords and file names to help your SEO and search engine rankings.

Image alt tags

And don’t forget to add your alt tags when you add your photos to your website. This is the text that displays on the front of your website if there’s a problem with your image. And it’s also an aspect that Google can read.

Use multiple images per product

You don’t have to provide dozens of images, but don’t provide just one image per product. A single image of poor quality will undoubtedly put off a customer and cause them to go to a competitor.

Three images per product as a minimum seems to be the magic number or one from each angle/side is a good framework to follow.

Do I don’t I use the manufacturer’s images

It’s okay to use the manufacturer’s images as long as they’re included with your gallery of photos. Remember to rename them to unique file names, though.

Photo editing

Don’t go silly when it comes to editing your product images. It’s always a good idea to tweak and enhance your products to represent them in the best possible light (no pun intended), but don’t over-edit. Your product photos still need to be an accurate depiction of your product at the end of the day. You don’t want the customer’s expectation vs the reality of what they will receive to be skewed.

Customer images

Another fantastic trust point is to include product images from your customers with the item/s they purchased. A great way to capture these is to allow customers to upload a photo with their review. It’s such an easy and straightforward way to capture new content.

Video

This is an excellent addition to your product page and is often underutilised in small businesses marketing plans. So, if you don’t have a video included in your product description or shop page framework, it’s worth considering and thinking how you could so so.

Video works especially well if you have more of a high-end product where the product is showcased how it’s meant to be used and while also highlighting a close-up of the product too. It’s a fantastic way to encourage your customer to click on that buy button.

Call to action

Now is not the time to be subtle. you want to tell your website visitors exactly what you want them to do.

Ensure your buy button stands out in colour, and there’s no unnecessary scrolling because you can’t find it.

You want the “buy” or “buy now” “add to cart” to stand out immediately.

Size guide

If you’re selling clothing or shoes, ensure you have a clear and detailed size guide. Way too many product pages miss this, or their size guide is hard to find or very basic. Consider what measurements you’d want to know if you weren’t familiar with your product.

And just think: When someone doesn’t find the information they need on your website to click on the “buy now” button, what are they going to do? They’re going to jump onto your competitor’s website, aren’t they? And we don’t want this. So, ensure you include all the measurements.

Product description

Crafting your product description is probably my second most favourite thing about having an ecommerce website.

But there’s one really important rule you should never forget. Ensure your product descriptions are custom written.

Never ever use your manufacturer’s product description. Just think, if everyone did that, how many verbatim product descriptions would be out there on the web if that was the case? So, crafting your own is super important for your website’s SEO.

Also, include all the relevant technical information:

• model number
• ingredients
• dimensions
• features
• benefits

Paint a picture of how it will make your customer’s life happier and better. And if it’s locally made or manufactured then showcase and highlight the bejesus out of that.

Reviews and testimonials

This is the perfect way to help build trust with potential customers. The online world can seem quite impersonal and sterile sometimes but showcasing reviews is the ideal way to add authenticity to your product and your business brand.

And trust can go a long way in encouraging a customer to make a purchase and hit that “add to cart” button.

FAQs

Don’t skip over adding FAQs to your product pages. FAQs are a fantastic way to help customers who might be fence-sitting about making a purchase or not.

You want to remove any barriers that might stop customers from clicking that “buy now” button. So, anything you can do to answer any and all questions and help them make the buying decision is only a positive experience with your brand.

I always think of FAQs as a working document—adding and adjusting as customers’ common questions come in.

How does your product description layout pull up?

Now you’ve read what makes an e-commerce product blueprint. How do your product pages fair?

Product descriptions are a tricky one and you’ll always need to tweak and adjust the above blueprint to suit your brand and audience.

And if it’s time to overhaul your products and what you’re doing it’s never too start to late. as I say with most things when it comes to ecommerce start with your:

• best selling products
• best selling categories
• what you want to be selling best
• upcoming seasons/special occasions/what’s relevant
• new products

That way it’s not so overwhelming.