Conversion optimization is essential at every stage of a website. If your brand hasn’t recently analyzed your category pages, the layout and navigation could be impacting your sales.
Online stores can easily feel overwhelming to shoppers if not organized properly. Consumers don’t have time to look through hundreds of products to find what they’re looking for, so any lack of organization could result in a loss in revenue and customer loyalty.
Luckily, we have the tips to help optimize category pages so you can easily move shoppers on the path to conversion.
The Benefits of Optimizing Your Category Pages
Once you take the steps to level up your category pages, you’ll be able to provide a heightened shopping experience for your customers. Before we jump into optimization strategies, let’s take a look at the benefits of optimizing your category pages.
Improved User Experience
Optimized category pages ultimately come down to one thing – it makes shopping easier. Helping shoppers get what they need results in happier customers, and happy customers are the first step in building brand trust and loyalty.
Increase in Average Order Value
Once customers can easily access your products, there’s a good chance they’ll find additional items to add to their cart. Shoppers will be spending less time sorting through irrelevant products, so they have more time to discover extra items to purchase.
Increase in Conversions
Ultimately, the more help you provide to your website visitors, the more you’ll be able to guide them to checkout. No matter what type of products you sell, there are key strategies to implement that will enhance your buyer’s journey to boost KPIs for your online business.
7 Ways to Optimize Your Category Page
Conversion optimization doesn’t have to be complicated. Take a look at these seven steps to improve your category pages and increase conversions for your website.
1. Improve Navigation and Visuals
Website navigation should be simple and effortless. Once a shopper gets to a specific category page, present them with subcategories and collections to align their product choices with their personal product requirements.
Your design should also be clean with no distractions so the products speak for themselves. Consider placing a clear hero image for each category page to represent your selected items. Make sure each image is well thought out and extremely clear to alleviate any confusion.
2. Add Advanced Product Sorting
Now that you’ve added highly-specific product category options, detailed sorting options are the next step in product organization.
Even if a shopper is viewing their desired category, let them filter by size, color, price, or specific features so they see what’s relevant to them. This eliminates the need to click through similar products until they find the right match.
It’s also useful to implement sorting by ratings, specific price points, featured products, or new arrivals. This kind of social proof makes a huge impact in product selection, especially if there are multiple, comparable items.
If a shopper can see what items have the best ratings, they’ll feel more confident in purchasing that product themselves. When catering to price sensitive shoppers, sorting by price will help them view products in their price range instead of leaving your website all together. For your frequent customers, filtering by new arrivals lets them easily grab your new items while they’re hot.
3. Offer Product Comparison Tools
No one wants to have dozens of open tabs on their computer while shopping online. Instead of needing to switch back and forth between products, offer product comparison tools so users can view product features side by side.
This way, product comparisons show all the unique features of your items so shoppers don’t lose steam and abandon your website.
4. Leverage Segmentation to Personalize Recommendations
Even with all the great filtering options available, sometimes shoppers still need that extra nudge to find the perfect product. Personalized recommendations can act as a personal shopper online when a little help is needed.
Position dynamic recommendations towards the bottom of your category pages to highlight similar products that shoppers could have otherwise missed. Through leveraging browsing or purchase history, you can easily recommend specific items that go hand in hand with visitor details.
5. Utilize Abandonment Strategies
Implementing abandonment strategies is key in recovering otherwise lost sales. Especially at this stage in the funnel, a small incentive such as 10% off can go a long way in keeping shoppers on site.
You can even reiterate existing offers to regain an abandoning shopper’s attention. Consider promoting your existing sales or free shipping and returns if there is any concern about hurting your bottom line.
If your brand is still hesitant to offer discounts, product recommendations on abandonment can guide shoppers back into the funnel to make a purchase.
6. Optimize for Mobile
67% of global online retail sales come from mobile devices. Your brand will miss out on revenue if your category pages aren’t easy to scan on a mobile phone. Your website page load times also need to be up to speed. Users have short attention spans, and they’re likely to abandon your website if they have to continually wait for pages to load.
7. Run A/B Tests
Once you have all these strategies in place, your optimizations shouldn’t stop there. A/B and multivariate testing is an excellent way to collect data-backed information about your buyer’s journey.
Having a test in place allows for simple fixes you wouldn’t have otherwise found. Anything from design to copy to organization could be impacting your conversions, and testing different ideas will take the guesswork out of your marketing strategies.
How UpSellit can Help
UpSellit has the capabilities in house to make your website optimizations come to life. Our team of designers and engineers can quickly implement one-to-one strategies that increase conversions by 5-15%. Once solutions are in place, we continually test and monitor campaign performance so your brand can unlock limitless conversion optimization potential.
Boost Engagement with UpSellit
Ready for more insight? Get a free copy of UpSellit’s 15 Ways to Boost Engagement and Acquisition or email hello@upsellit.com to unlock conversion boosting strategies for your website.
