As a marketer if I could pick just one focus area it would be product page optimization. The product page is where the “moment of truth” happens.

Visitors engaged on the product page are telling us, “I see all you have to offer and this, right here, is what I’m most intrigued by.”

Why product pages matter

Irrespective of how they get there it’s on the product page the potential buyer chooses between 2 options:

If they choose “Let me sleep on it” there’s a 68% chance we’ve lost them. It’s going to kill our product page optimization chances.

As a marketer, it’s my job to make the business case and close the sale.

Product page optimization: how to do it?

To realize the full potential of product page optimization we need to understand the power of product stories (explained in detail here: Storytelling in Marketing).

Summary of product stories

Every product has a story. The key details about this product story can be found in the link above but here is a quick summary.

There are two aspects to any product story:

1: “why we exist”
2: “why this product must exist”

Think of your site as a hurdle race where the shopper has to overcome hurdles before they are ready to use their credit card.

The first hurdle is “who are you and why should I care?” and this is what the “why we exist” section answers. At this point, we’re trying to get the site visitor over the unfamiliarity hump.

Your “why we exist” story really matters. KoMarketing did a survey where they asked “Once you’re on the homepage, what information do you want to see available?“. 52% said About / Company Information. (Source)

Once they’re sold on the “why we exist” story they move to hurdle 2: “I like you and understand why you exist but what makes your product the best?”

This is what the “why this product must exist” question answers.

Extracting “why we exist” and “why this product must exist” stories

In our experience working with clients, we find that while they have a really compelling story, they are often unaware of it -or- just too shy to talk about it. To overcome this natural hesitation we have a role-play exercise.

Fill in the blanks:

You are sitting at an upscale bar enjoying a delicious cocktail. It’s been a good week.

Someone sits next to you. You get talking and hit it off. You tell them about your business. They smile and lean in with interest.

Turns out, they’ve been looking for __________. This is a crazy moment of serendipity.

They’ve visited plenty of online review sites and seen plenty of products, but just haven’t found the right model. If anything, there are too many options out there, and now are paralyzed by choice.

They ask, “Mind if I play around on your site on my phone right now?”

You say, “Absolutely!”

20 minutes later, they are ready with questions:

— When did you first see the need?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— Why did it affect you? What personal frustration did it connect with?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— Were you surprised the product didn’t already exist?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— How did you go from having the idea to mustering the courage to start a company? Was that scary?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— Running a business is hard as hell. How did you overcome setbacks along the way? What gets you out of bed every day?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— What are your guiding principles?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— How do stay ahead of competitors with deeper pockets?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— Before you started what options were available to the shopper?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— What was the most complicated part of the _______ (product name) development process? Were there parts that turned out to be way more complicated than you had originally anticipated?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— How important is it that this product exists? What would the world miss out on if it didn’t exist?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— How do you stay ahead of the competition?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— Your invention has been available for the last ___ years. What improvements have you made along the way? Please share some of those product improvement stories.

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— When you talk to customers who have bought and used __________ (product name), what feature do they seem most surprised by?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— What’s one aspect of your product story that most buyers don’t know?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

— Sites like __________ and _________ can outspend you online. They will always show up #1 in a Google search. How do you plan to deal with that?

Your reply: __________________________________________________

These aren’t all the questions one can ask. These are just the most common ones. You’ll need to expand on this list to cover the topics you want to explore in your story.

“We we” product page optimization

Some marketers have misunderstood our emphasis on “why we exist” and “why this product must exist”. It comes off as being all about the seller. They argue, “why will the buyer care about how great we are?”

This is a valid concern. “Why we exist” and “why this product must exist” stories can be crafted how you want them.

Most retailers don’t even have a product story. So, given a choice between no story and a we we story I’d start with the latter. However, once the we we centric product story is live and doing its product page optimization job we can start making it more subtle by reframing it less from the perspective of the seller and more from the perspective of the buyer. Ultimately, this version will have the biggest product page optimization impact.

“I see the importance of product page optimization but which product page should I focus on?”

Good question. Crafting a conversion-boosting product story isn’t easy and if you have a 20 product website it can be hard to know where to start.

So start with one of two of your most important product pages. The ones that drive the most net profits. Start there.

As results come in reinvest and start applying the product story treatment to your other pages. With practice, you’ll get quicker. Even if these secondary product pages don’t drive as much revenue it’ll be worth it because optimizing their product pages will not take as long.

Long-tail distribution?

It’s possible you don’t have any one or two pages that drive the bulk of revenue. Your sales are divided between 50 odd items. Optimizing one or two pages will not cut it.

For this situation, I suggest focusing on the “why we exist” side of the product story.

The “why we exist” story is easier to craft because it doesn’t have to be written from the perspective of any one product. You can write it without thinking about your product. This story is your origin story.

The simplest way to test the “why we exist” story is to make a call-to-action button called “why we exist” and place it on your most visible pages. Set it so when a visitor clicks the button all other instances of the button get hidden. This maximizes button visibility without making it annoying for people who have already clicked it.

A LITTLE ABOUT US

Thank you for reading this article about product page optimization. We are Frictionless Commerce and over the last 11 years, we’ve thought about just one thing: how do we get online shoppers to convert? We’re fascinated by buyer psychology. And once we understand how your site visitor thinks we use our 9 point copywriting process to convince and convert them.

If you’re on LinkedIn much you can should definitely connect with me. On LinkedIn, I post ecommerce conversion ideas every day, multiple times a day.