How to optimise your product listing pages

Suppose you are looking to optimise your website for more conversions. In that case, the vast majority of eCommerce marketers will tell you that your primary focus should be your homepage or your product detail pages. Whilst this is the correct answer, there is another way to generate clicks that many seasoned marketers miss: the product listing pages.

Usually, these pages are used as a catalogue to showcase your products or services. However, they provide a chance for you to improve your customer experience. Customers already browsing your products are clearly engaged with your store and just need some gentle encouragement to change them from a lead to a conversion.

Many components go into optimising a page, so it”s always beneficial to consult an SEO agency London before getting started.

In this article, we are going to talk through all the key knowledge for optimising your product listing pages, including:

• What is a product listing page?
• Best practices for optimising your product listing pages

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What is a product listing page?

A product listing page, a PLP or category page, is a page on your website where your products or services are displayed. These are pages where you lead visitors to individual product pages to find more information in hopes of a sale.

Although a category page”s primary focus is to lead your customers to product pages, you may also have an add-to-cart feature on this page for those looking for a quick buy.

One main reason for optimising your product listing pages is to improve the user experience and tailor this to your shopper”s different intents.

There are two main types of intent. The first is the buyers who visit your site knowing what they are looking for and browse the most relevant items for their search intent. For example, this could be someone looking for a football who doesn”t want to see rugby balls.

The second kind of intention is a visitor only browsing in case they find something they like. They will tend to use your product listing pages to sift through your products.

It”s important to remember that your PLPs are not just about the navigation and user experience because they do so much more than that. Suppose you optimise your product landing page well. In that case, you can boost your site”s SEO, increase your conversion rate and improve your user engagement.

Our best practices for optimising your category pages

Use headers or banners

Website headers are a great way to reinforce your branding. You can use this space to create a quality banner that engages and informs your customers without adding clutter to the site. Select high-quality image/s to use as your hero to improve your customer”s journey and re-enforce this by adding a <H1 tag to asset Google with indexing.

Optimise your product listing display

Your PLP has a significant impact on how customers interact with your products. The most common way to display products is usually a grid or a list view:

• A grid view allows your website visitors to peruse and compare your products side-by-side. This is the best option if your site is more picture-focused and less about your descriptions.
• A list view means your customers need to do a little more scrolling. However, it”s beneficial if you need to display more of your product information. This is an excellent way for your customers to compare your product attributes.

Some websites let customers choose between a list or grid view, which we would recommend as it will improve your customer experience based on the web visitors” preferences.

Add persuasion triggers

A persuasion trigger is a tactic used to generate a sense of urgency for a purchase. You will see a lot of hotel booking sites and fashion websites use this tactic. They usually come in the form of “selling out fast” or “only 1 room left at this price.”

Labels like this trigger fear in customers as they don”t want to miss out on the deal, which pushes them to take action and nudges them to make a purchase.

Personalisation

Personalising the shopping experience can increase your conversions and engagement and help shoppers discover more relevant products by arranging them by individual preferences. A personalised experience can also help reduce your bounce rate up to 20-30%.

One of the best ways for you to provide your visitors with a personalised experience is to display complementing products. For example, customers shopping for football boots may also be interested in buying football socks or shorts.

Optimise navigation

Your navigation needs to be straightforward to understand so that potential customers can easily find what they are looking for. There are a couple of tips you can use, including:

• Ensuring your navigation is always at the top of the page with your products arranged logically.
• Put your best-selling products in a prime placement. Customers like to know what others are already buying, and your most popular options are usually the safest products to buy when new to your business. Make sure you throw in some social proof, like ratings and reviews, to drive home the sale.

Include the right information

When providing details of your products on your listing page, ensure that you only include the information that will help customers select what products they want to buy. Examples of the information you can use are things like star ratings, reviews, colours, sizes and discounts.

Optimise your SEO

To help improve your conversion rates, you need to ensure that your PLPs are fully optimised. When optimising your category page, stick to the basics of SEO, including:

• Optimising your title tags
• Writing unique product and meta descriptions
• Including internal linking to these pages
• Use image alt attributes and rich snippets

Use clear CTAs

Occasionally, your customers won”t need a lengthy deliberation before converting to purchase. This is especially true for returning customers or if you are purchasing fast-turnover products like groceries. Adding a quick add-to-cart button will make the checkout process much faster.

We would also recommend adding an add-to-wishlist CTA for those that like your products but need more time to consider the purchase, as it will be easier for them to find this if they come back to you.

Ensure that your call to actions are clear. If your CTRs are low, make sure the action you want to be completed is obvious. If not, try making subtle changes like updating the colour.

Conclusion

So there you have it, product listing pages can be optimised to function as conversion machines. When optimised effectively, they are crucial to providing a great customer experience, increasing your average order value and bringing up your search engine rankings.

If you are a seasoned retailer or new to the world of eCommerce, it might feel a bit overwhelming to get a home run the first time round. But with the above advice and tips you can take your category pages to the next level!