Putting Your Product Pages to Work - Show Them Something Pretty
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I haven't gone into much detail about images and layout. Yes, you should have images. You should use alt tags on your images, and use keywords appropriately with them (no keyword stuffing; just use them neatly in a sentence or phrase). Keep in mind that this may be the only view your visitor has of the product before purchase, so make sure that your images are as clear, high-quality, and accurate as possible. Quality images convey the idea of a quality product; poor images convey the opposite.
You may want to include several images that highlight different views of the same product – the front and back of a digital camera, for example. You can also include close-up images if there are certain features you wish to highlight. You can even include video of the product in action. This can work fairly effectively with software. With a digital camera, you might want to include images shot with the device to show what it can do.
You need to be consistent in the way you lay out your product pages. Visitors will expect to find certain information in specific places. After they have visited even one of your product pages and seen, for example, that you put the product image on the upper left, the “add to shopping cart” button in the upper right corner, the product overview next to the image, the specifications just under that, etc., they'll expect ALL of your product pages to be laid out the same. If they aren't, your visitors will feel frustrated – and a frustrated visitor is not going to buy from you.
Finally, you should show potential customers something that will be a sight for sore eyes for many of us: contact information. Some customers will happily fill out a web form to make an online purchase. Others prefer to talk to a real live person on the phone. Still others prefer to use email to get their questions answered. And some, as we've seen in the Dell screen shots, appreciate live chat.
Your product page should help you sell your products, but online sales are different from in-store sales. Since visitors can't handle the merchandise, they need as much information as possible to help them make their decision. Provide them with what they need, and you should see your conversions improve. Good luck!
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