Best Design Tips for a Great Product Page
It doesn’t matter how great your products are if your product page doesn’t deliver. It’s also easy to get caught up in making a fantastic homepage for your e-commerce site, only for your product pages to become afterthoughts. However, a well-designed product page is just as essential for converting visitors as your homepage, even more so when visitors follow direct links to one of those product pages.
The following highlights a few best design practices to help unleash your product page’s full potential and increase conversions while you’re at it.
Design with Mobile in Mind
These days, it seems like every person you meet has a smartphone. And you’d be right – an estimated 84% of U.S. households own a smartphone, and at least 79% of users made e-commerce purchases with them in the past 6 months. What’s more, nearly half of all website traffic comes from smartphones and other mobile devices and over half of all e-commerce purchases made during the previous holiday season were done with mobile devices.
Mobile users are a force to be reckoned with, so it makes sense to design with them in mind. That means having your product page optimized for mobile-friendliness. Here are a few other ways you can make your product page mobile-friendly:
- Tappability – Every element that’s meant to be tapped must have enough padding around them to stop the “fat finger” phenomenon in its tracks.
- Textability – Keep phone numbers and other important contact info as text instead of converting them into images. That makes it easier to paste or tap-to-call the number in question.
- Scalability – Employ responsive web design in your product pages. Responsive websites will flow and scale in size to accommodate smaller screens, all without changing the fundamental character of the product page itself.
Apple’s product pages come to mind as a great example of mobile-friendly design. If you take their iPhone page for instance, every element is designed around ease-of-use for mobile visitors, plus all those elements readily conform to your mobile device’s unique screen dimensions. The end result is an experience that feels tailor-made and approachable for mobile users.
Use Large, High-Quality Images
The best copy on a product page pales in comparison to what a few high-quality images can say about your product. We’re visual creatures, after all – our brains process images much faster than text. And in an era where we swipe up, down, left and right instantly, high-quality images are your best bet for grabbing visitors’ attention and, most importantly, increasing conversion rates.
Notice how we keep saying “high-quality.” By that, we mean images with a beefy-enough pixel count to avoid the blurry, pixelated look that turns off viewers. Having a large, high-resolution image also means you make it zoomable, giving visitors a closer look at your wares.
- Spice things up by showing off multiple photos of your products taken from different angles. Seeing your products from more than one angle gives your customers even more incentive to buy.
- Encourage customers to share photos of them wearing or using your products. You can also reach out to influencers to inspire your customers to make those purchases.
- Avoid small thumbnails unless they lead to larger images. Those postage-sized pictures can frustrate visitors and tank conversion rates. Case-in-point: many of Amazon’s product pages use small thumbnails that reveal much larger images on rollover.
Check out Master & Dynamic’s pages, for example the one below, which is one of their wireless earphones product pages and has with spectacular visuals all throughout the page:
Don’t Forget About Video
While online shoppers can’t physically interact with your products, seeing them in a demo video is the next best thing. Videos add a dynamic element to your product page that mere images can’t match. A professionally done video not only adds value to the product, but it can also serve an instructional purpose for more complicated products.
A great demo video can give your shoppers all the more reason to buy your product. Here are a few key tips to help you create some standout footage:
- Smoothness is key. A tripod or gimbal works wonders for filming smooth, shake-free video.
- The product is the star. Use neutral backgrounds to keep your audience’s focus on the product itself.
- Keep scale in mind. If needed, use other objects to compare and contrast your product’s true size.
- Never go vertical. The average smartphone user does it, but vertical videos simply look bad when played in most video players. Save yourself the hassle and shoot in landscape mode.
The Home Depot website shows just how demo videos are done. Every product usually has several videos showing the product in action, highlighting the most important features and how to use them. The videos themselves are kept short and tightly focused, with zero distractions from the show's true star.
Focus on Ease of Navigation
One way to make navigation easier on visitors is to use breadcrumbs. True to its name, breadcrumb navigation lets visitors follow a “trail” of links from the product page back to the homepage. Breadcrumb navigation also follows page hierarchy, allowing visitors to go back one or more levels to view products in a larger category.
Target’s website makes great use of breadcrumb navigation, letting visitors know where they are currently and how many levels they can browse before hitting the homepage. If visitors want to browse more products in a larger category, they’ll have the opportunity to do so with just a quick click.
Weaponize FOMO
No one wants to miss out on a great deal, especially if it seems that deal won’t stick around for long. Using FOMO or “Fear of Missing Out” to your advantage is a boon for shortening shoppers’ decision-making processes and guaranteeing sales.
FOMO is an effective tactic for encouraging shoppers to make reactive purchases. It’s also a phenomenon that’s most prevalent in the millennial age bracket – nearly 7 out of 10 people experience FOMO in some form, especially when it comes to their social media experiences.
Think of FOMO as a secret weapon in your product page design. There are several ways you can incorporate FOMO as part of your product page best design practices:
- Display current stock levels. The lower the stock, the more likely shoppers will pull the trigger on a purchase before stocks run out.
- Display that other people are buying the same product. Knowing that others are taking advantage of the same great deal triggers the FOMO reaction.
- Use countdown clocks to create a sense of urgency. It’s a simple trick that can compel shoppers to beat the clock and buy before time runs out. Amazon uses countdown clocks for their free Prime delivery to trigger FOMO in visitors.
- Highlight missed opportunities to activate FOMO. When visitors see the great deals that they’ve missed out, they’ll search deeper for other deals they can take advantage of.
Another tactic you can use to trigger FOMO among visitors is to limit free shipping. 9 out of 10 shoppers cite free shipping as a major incentive to shop online. However, free shipping should come with a few strings attached. You can set limits on free shipping by showing visitors how much they’ll need to spend to benefit. Your customers will easily reach that threshold simply out of FOMO, especially if it doesn’t cost much extra to do so.
Make Your Call-to-Action Stand Out
Products can’t sell if a visitor sees your product page, but doesn’t know what to do next. That’s where the call-to-action comes into play. A prominent CTA is one of the most important elements of your product page. A great one creates a sense of urgency while giving visitors concrete action they can easily follow.
On a typical product page, your CTA will most likely be a “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart” button, although it can be anything else that immediately motivates visitors to act.
- Be creative with your CTAs. Don’t be afraid to step outside the box and use a truly memorable line that compels people to click.
- Consider how you use colors. Not only should your CTA color choice work in harmony with your product page design, but it should also invoke the right reaction in your target audience. Different colors trigger different emotions, and they can also have different connotations in various regions of the world.
- Make sure your CTA text matches with user experiences across the globe. What one would call a “cart” in the U.S. is actually a “basket” in the U.K., for example.
Take Tailor Brands logo maker page, which offers a great example of a simple, distinct and effective CTA. The large blue button with the clear and concise “Create a logo” text immediately grabs visitors’ attention and makes it very clear what they should do next. These elements come together to make it a fantastic CTA for anyone interested in creating their own custom logo.
Wrapping Up
For e-commerce websites, success isn’t just defined by conversion rates or traffic counts. It’s also defined by how visitors perceive your brand and its products, especially after a positive shopping experience. Such experiences come not just from having a great product page, but through following best practices that help those pages stand out.
Nuno Pessoa
As a filmmaker with extensive experience across multiple areas of content creation, my work has been featured internationally, and I’ve had the honor of serving as both a speaker and jury member at numerous prestigious events. However, in recent years, I’ve grown increasingly disillusioned with the direction of the art world, prompting a shift in my focus toward disciplines I believe will be pivotal for the future: cybersecurity, self-education, web design, and investment in emerging assets. These interests have culminated in the launch of RushRadar, a platform dedicated to exploring these vital topics and empowering others to navigate the evolving digital landscape.