Kristine
As you’re looking at your analytics dashboard, you notice that a product page is getting a lot more traffic than usual. Despite your website’s newfound popularity, however, only a fraction of these visitors to your site are actually making purchases. What gives?
There are several potential reasons why shoppers might check out your store without buying anything. They could be:
- Comparing costs among different stores
- Browsing without intending to purchase anything
- Researching possible gift options (for themselves or others)
- Waiting for a better deal
- Killing time on the internet while commuting or taking a quick break at work
Furthermore, conversion rates are lower than you might think. In 2020, the average conversion rate for eCommerce sites in the US was just 2.63%. Although some industries see higher average conversion rates — such as the food and beverages industry, which has an average conversion rate of 4.95% — a 2.5% conversion rate is a good benchmark for small to midsize businesses to aim for.
Now, if you want your product pages to be a step above the competition and convert more browsers into loyal customers, then you should consider doing a content audit.
What’s a content audit?
A content audit consists of analyzing the current pages on your websites and making changes to optimize them for your customers. Doing regular content audits will help your eCommerce store remain relevant, appealing, and helpful for your target audience.
You can perform a content audit for every page on your website, or you can focus on one segment of your store at a time. Your product pages are a great place to begin, as these pages are one of the strongest influences on your customers. A poorly-designed product page can make a visitor choose a competitor’s product over yours; even if you have better reviews!
Benefits of content audits
The most obvious benefit of performing a content audit is that you can guarantee that the information on your website is accurate and up-to-date. A thorough audit will reveal any broken links, irrelevant pages, poor copywriting, and missing information. You’ll be able to create a record of content you need to create, update, re-write, or delete entirely.
Content audits can also boost your pages’ SEO rankings. By adding more relevant meta descriptions and popular keywords, Google will prioritize your site above others with less recent data. Other benefits of auditing your product pages can include:
- Discovering new SEO opportunities
- Finding updated information about what your audience’s wants and needs are
- Identifying content that performs the best
- A deeper understanding of your customers’ likes and dislikes
- Better overall maintenance of your content
How to audit your product pages
An audit consists of three primary phases. First, you’ll need to collect key metrics and data that will help you recognize pages that are underperforming. Next, you will have to assess whether the content on each page should be rewritten, reorganized, or deleted. Once you have a list of items to update, your next step is to work on optimizing each product page according to your findings.
This might sound overwhelming, but there are several free online tools that can do a lot of the data collection and analysis for you, and our best practices guideline will help you through the content optimization process. Read on to find step-by-step instructions and our top optimization recommendations!
1. Review key metrics
The first step of a content audit involves collecting the necessary data. If you’re most interested in driving more traffic to your pages and increasing conversions, you’ll want to look at your current metrics in these areas. Some helpful metrics to track can include:
- Average session time
- Bounce rate
- Average customer spend
- Customer acquisition cost
- Unique visitors (daily, weekly, or monthly)
- Customer retention rate
If you’re not sure where to find this information, Google Analytics is a great place to start. It’s a free service that can give you key insights about your most popular pages, who your customers are, and their behaviors on your website.
Once you have a good understanding of how well your pages are currently performing, you’ll be able to recognize patterns within your content. For example, you might notice that product pages with more than three images convert more shoppers. Be sure to take note of these top-performing pages, as well as pages that have very poor conversion rates.
2. Analyze your content
At this point, you should have clear metrics about every one of your product pages, and you may have already recognized some patterns. This step involves assessing why some pages are performing so much better (or worse) than others. Some common content mistakes that can disway potential buyers include:
- Poorly written or generic product descriptions
- Not showing any customer reviews or case studies
- Using outdated or irrelevant keywords
- Broken links and duplicate content
- Misleading or generic titles
- No internal links
When someone is looking at your product page, the last thing you want is for them to leave your website with unanswered questions. This is why it’s crucial to include information about how to use the product, what its dimensions are, how it’s unique from other brands, and genuine reviews from previous customers. If you want shoppers to trust your product, you need to show transparency.
During this step, focus on the information you’re presenting on each page. Focus on updating pages with trending keywords, updated images, recent statistics, and other facts that are relevant in your industry. You can also fix broken links, delete old pages, or declutter other areas of your website.
3. Optimize for SEO
The majority of online shoppers don’t look beyond the first page of search results. If you’re not optimizing your product pages, you’re missing out on countless potential sales and opportunities!
If your product page can tell Google exactly what it’s selling, Google will be far more likely to show your site to a new potential customer. Someone searching for a red oversized knit sweater, for instance, would be delighted to see a direct link to an item matching that description.
To start boosting your SEO rankings, try these helpful tips first:
- Add high-quality product images
- Include short image descriptions
- Use relevant keywords in the page’s title tags and product descriptions
- Arrange your content with plenty of white space to minimize distractions
- Include a video demonstration and a brief description
- Share customer reviews and product ratings
4. Optimize for your audience
The ultimate goals of product pages are to answer customers’ questions, build trust, and encourage them to make a purchase. Even if you have one of the best products on the market, you won’t be successful if shoppers don’t trust your brand or can’t find the answers they’re looking for.
Product page optimization can vary depending on what kind of item you’re selling. Beauty brands, for instance, may appeal to their audience by focusing on the benefits of a skincare product instead of the product’s specs. On the other hand, a clothing brand might want to focus on listing each item’s exact dimensions to make sure someone doesn’t order the wrong size.
However, there are still some common optimization tips that can apply to all eCommerce stores. Here are the top recommendations:
- Add a clear CTA button
- Make the descriptions skimmable by using bullet points
- Add real-time inventory updates to create a sense of urgency
- Display safety or trust badges to reassure customers that your site is secure
- Include a FAQ section with any information that doesn’t neatly fit into the product description or specs
- Consider adding a chatbot to provide immediate answers to customers at any time
- Include a section for recommended or related products to keep users on your site longer
- Double-check your website’s loading speed to keep customers from bouncing or abandoning their carts
Additional suggestions
Recognizing what needs to be changed on your product pages is a great start, but rewriting and updating your content can be a serious challenge. If you need some help with your content audit, why not outsource your content writing needs to a pro?
Content Cucumber offers professional eCommerce writing services for a flat rate, with the option to add more robust services as your business grows. You’ll be paired with your very own personal writer who can conduct keyword research, write product descriptions, create blog posts, and so much more. If you want to see what Content Cucumber can do for you, book a demo today!
