How to Create a High Performing Category Page For your E-commerce Store

The cornerstone to a successful e-commerce store is through a high-performing category page. It sets the tone for your store and leaves an impression on your customers.

The cornerstone to a successful e-commerce store is through a high-performing category page. It sets the tone for your store and leaves an impression on your customers. Most consumers are less likely to return to your store if it’s confusing, unorganized and difficult to navigate. So it’s imperative to optimize one of the most important pages of your store to ensure a smooth user experience.

The category page is the bridge between the homepage of your e-commerce store and your product pages. E-commerce category pages display the type of products you have to offer. Subsequently, seamless user navigation in the category page can ensure high conversion rates and revenue.

The Role of the Category Page

Similar to grocery stores, shoppers find it easier to navigate stores where products are accessible. When the aisles display the products accordingly, finding the right products is effortless, improving the entire shopping experience. It encourages them to return and purchase even more. So if the placement is right, it’ll be easy for the customers to shop.

In the case of e-commerce, a confusing product listing tends to drive away potential consumers.

Categories organize your products to make it easier or users to locate what they’re after. In optimizing the category pages, it’s best if you keep user intent in mind. The primary goal is to provide the best user experience to generate more sales, so if a customer struggles to browse your e-commerce store, maybe it’s time to change your strategy.

Let us discuss best practices when creating your category pages that make sense to your target market.

Choosing Your Categories

Designing optimized category pages involve in-depth user analysis and research. It should be your objective to tailor the e-commerce store’s structure to convert your traffic into revenue. Not only can it enhance the overall user experience but also improve your store’s SEO.

Prioritize Clarity in Choosing Category Names

The category names, along with product descriptions and listings, should be clear and concise.

It should follow the jargon of your target market. Instead of using obscure words, simplify the terms that you use according to the language that your customer understands.

Prioritize clarity and make sure to include the description in its entirety. It’s best if your listings pass the Flesch reading scale to make sure that it’s understandable.

Moreover, you can perform keyword research to determine the terms that have better SEO. This research improves the chances of your product to be seen by more people.

Dividing Your Products into Multiple Categories

When providing categories for your products, it’s best to divide them into multiple groups. You can integrate brands, sizes, types of products, and more to give your users more ways to browse your products. Categorizing your offerings also makes it easier for customers to locate their desired items or browse your offerings to find what they want.

It’s best if you highlight particular product groups, including the best-selling products and most sought-after brands. Putting those categories upfront allows customers who are looking for specific brands to find their preferred items easily.

At the same time, consumers can figure out the products other people most likely buy from your store by browsing your best-selling categories.

Choosing the Right Featured Product Images

Choosing the right product images to feature on your category page is crucial. It is essential to add an image that immediately tells the consumer about the category — and each individual product as well. They should be able to point out the category at face value.

You must select images that have high-resolution, similar size, proportions, and background like the rest. Uniformity prevents confusion and lets the consumers focus on the actual product. If you use inconsistent images, your audience will focus on their differences instead of becoming compelled to choose one.

Adding an “Add to Cart” Button to Quickly Convert Customers

Adding this call-to-action button for every product listing on the category page will increase your conversion rate. This button improves the user experience as they can conveniently compare product prices without a fuss of going to the actual product page when they don’t really want to or have to.

To make your “add to cart” button functional, strive towards keeping it immersive and informative. Consumers should see what happens when they click the button. Actions, such as adding a product to the cart, should be shown in real-time by displaying a notification or even better, the entire shopping cart.

Allow Filtering, Especially if You have Hundreds of Products

Your e-commerce store should allow filtering, especially for a more complex and more extensive selection of products. E-commerce stores with a vast catalog aim to accommodate the preferences and demands of their customers. When you focus on improving the ease of use, it eliminates frustration and confusion for your customers. You can ease dreadful shopping navigation by implementing faceted filtering to help them narrow down their search.

Additionally, you must empower your users to improve their experience. Let them select their filters manually by providing pricing input fields and color or material fields. This manual filtering option gives your customers choices. Therefore, they can shop at your store in an efficient manner. Each customer approaches your website differently so it’s your job to make it suitable for all of them.

Add actionable blocks that will advertise separate products or other categories

Integrating actionable or informational blocks in between product listings can advertise other products and improve your sales tremendously. This marketing tactic will help break up the mundane grid layout and provide some more value by displaying various recommendations and increase the chances of them seeing other product offerings, tips or informative blog posts.

But these can also just be editorial images to add some life and character to the page.

Directing them to promotional blogs and articles helps them understand the products further:

• Providing a how-to section or guide promotes integrity and implies care for your customers.
• Offering useful guides and articles establishes your brand as an authority in the industry, which entices customers to purchase from you instead of your competition. Gaining customers’ trust can ultimately retain them.

Implement strong design choices with enough breathing room around each product

To avoid a cluttered and confusing page, keep your design simple and straightforward. You cannot simply throw in countless features on your page to improve its functionality. Instead of promoting efficiency, it can complicate things even further.

Moreover, improve the user experience by providing enough breathing room with every element on your page. It emphasizes greater design sensibility while keeping your layout well-balanced. When your page comes together nicely and consistently, it is more pleasing to the eye. Most importantly, a great design is a reflection of the credibility of your business.

Optimize your e-commerce store with categories

To sum it all up, categorizing your products makes it easier for your customers to navigate your store, increasing your conversion rate. Adding a wide selection of categories along with featured categories prominently shown on the home page allows your customers to find exactly what they need immediately. Overall, a strong category page layout facilitates a smooth user experience for your customers driving sales and conversions.

If you want to improve your category pages and want some help doing so, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Originally published at https://www.studioumbrella.com.