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Last-minute ways to optimise product pages ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday

By Emily Rodgers, Specialist copywriter

Builtvisible

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The Drum Network article

This content is produced by The Drum Network, a paid-for membership club for CEOs and their agencies who want to share their expertise and grow their business.

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November 28, 2019 | 11 min read

In preparation for the big deal days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday - as well as the Christmas and January sales - you’ve probably made some logistical changes to your business to ensure you’re ready for the influx of orders and traffic that could hit your store. Maybe you’ve upped your stock levels, made your packing system watertight and scheduled extra workers. But have you thought about optimising your site? Builtvisible shares a few tips you can action right now.

Black Friday

Builtvisible share tips on how to build in an improved optimisation strategy ahead of the weekend's sales.

With just a few simple tweaks to the text of your pages, your site will become more searchable for the relevant sales terms and the customer experience will be more streamlined, which is paramount during these busy times.

Nowadays, the majority of shoppers do away with facing the shops, bagging their deals online. Product pages are the place where they’ll be clicking ‘Add to basket’, so it’s imperative that these are not only in tip-top condition but enhanced to cater to the (sometimes frantic) sales shopper.

Here are some last-minute tips to optimise product pages for Cyber Monday (and any other sale for that matter).

Product descriptions

If one thing is true about sale shoppers, it’s that they’re in a hurry. They don’t have time to read a giant chunk of prose that’s laden with adjectives. They need you to get to the point and make the copy scannable so they can make a decision as quickly as possible.

Your product descriptions, therefore, need to be written in short sentences, preferably using bullet points with parts of the text emphasised to draw the eye to the most important features.

Now, short doesn’t mean that product descriptions shouldn’t be detailed – quite the opposite. As online customers can’t touch the product, it’s up to you to paint a picture for the reader, making the product as tangible as it can be.

Product descriptions need to include every conceivable detail so that your customers can make a rational decision quickly. If you’ve told your customers that a tablet is sleek enough to fit in a handbag but not told them the exact measurements of the tablet, chances are they’re less likely to buy it and will bounce right out of your website to a competitor.

The product description checklist should be as follows:

  • Features (does it have different settings? Is it inspired by something? Are there multiple ways to use it? Is it portable?)
  • Measurements (length, width and height in both centimetres and inches)
  • Weight (either in kg or light, medium, heavy)
  • Feel (is the product smooth? Textured? Silky? This works more for fashion and furnishings)
  • Fabric (what is it made from? Is it hypoallergenic?)
  • Fastenings (is it a zip? Clip? Button?)
  • How it works (basic instructions and anything of note that may be confusing for the customer)
  • Model size and height (if a model is wearing the product in the images, include the size they’re wearing and how tall they are so the customer can compare to their own)
  • Care instructions (is it machine washable?)
  • Packaging (does it come in a box or a bag? Is the packaging recyclable?)
  • Warnings (is there an age limit?)
  • Warranty (is it three years? Five years?)
  • Product code (some shoppers like to gather these to easily search for them later)

Here's an example of what this could look like.

From this:

This artistic cushion is printed with abstract brushstrokes in vibrant colours, which is ideal for contemporary living rooms and bedrooms. Crafted from a cotton and linen blend, this soft cushion is rectangular in shape and plump in feel with a lightly textured finish. Scatter across your furnishings to brighten up any room.

To this:

  • Abstract brushstroke print
  • Measurements: 60 x 40cm
  • Lightweight, textured
  • Material: Front – 55% polyester, 19% viscose, 17% linen 9% cotton. Back – 97% cotton, 3% linen
  • Feather filling
  • Zip opening
  • Dry clean only
  • Packaged in airtight plastic
  • Not suitable for children under 3 years
  • 2-year warranty
  • Product code: 153682

You could even place a few details on your product listing page, as this brand has done:

bv1

Remember to ask yourself if the copy you’re adding is really telling the customer something useful. If it’s not, leave it out.

If your company requires you to write a short description instead of bullet points, be sure to keep sentences snappy and emphasise the benefits within the text to draw the customer’s eye.

Delivery and returns

Customers are more likely to buy when they know how the product is going to be delivered and exactly how they need to return the product – even more so if both of these processes are super easy.

First, make the delivery and return details visible and clear on your product pages and even your landing pages. As it’s a sale period, you could potentially offer free shipping for a short time to make the product more appealing.

Here’s an example of delivery details on a landing page:

bv2

And a product page:

bv3

Home page

Make your Cyber Monday offering visible from the homepage. We’re talking a big banner with star deals across the page, instead of a hero image on a slider. If you’re hoping to get traffic from this sale, make it easy for the customer to click through to.

Even better, eliminate unnecessary clicks by enabling the customer to click through to different products from the homepage as opposed to having to click through to a landing page and then to a category and then a product. If your product offering is too large to do this, group products in categories on the homepage, so the customer only has to click through twice to land on a product page.

The below example is a screenshot taken of an entire homepage. The banner at the top links directly to Black Friday deals and the slider below it links to various individual deals of best-selling products.

bv4

Call a spade a spade

Now is not the time to try and set yourself apart from your competitors by inventing a new name for Cyber Monday. If a customer lands on your site and you’ve attempted to mix it up by calling the sale ‘Virtual Deals’ customers are going to think you’re not participating and will bounce from your site straight away.

Calling it ‘Black Friday’ or ‘Cyber Monday’ may not be on-brand, but it’s the term that customers recognise. If you want to get creative, play around with the delivery of the assets or the body copy.

The brand in the below example has called their offering ‘Black Tag Event’. While it’s still recognisable, it doesn’t seem to add anything to the experience. Some customers may get frustrated that you’re making it harder for them to decipher exactly what the deal is, so be careful.

bv5

Image optimisation

One thing that might be slowing down how quickly your pages are loading is the size of your images. Compress each image using a compression tool and reduce the file size to make the page load faster.

Images can also help when customers are searching for a product. Within your CMS system, edit the Alt Tags to include a relevant search term such as ‘Cyber Monday’.

Title tag and meta descriptions

Including ‘Cyber Monday’ in the Title Tag of the product should improve rankings as Google includes Title Tags in its search for relevancy when customers are looking for products online.

While including the term ‘Cyber Monday’ in the meta description does not count in terms of improving rankings, it should improve click-through rates.

Here is an example of both of those in action:

bv6

Psychological bias tricks

Psychological biases play on the emotions that humans try to avoid within the realms of the shopping experience. Mainly FOMO (fear of missing out), scarcity (making the product almost out of reach) and social proof (people copy the actions of others to fit in).

Here are some details you can add to your homepage, sales pages and product pages that will kickstart customers into action and speed them through the funnel:

  • Add a time limit (FOMO)
  • Add the stock levels (scarcity)
  • Show how many customers are viewing the item or how many people have bought the item already (social proof)

Here are some example:

v7

CTAs

UX copy has to strike a balance between guiding the customer to the pages they’re looking for while being on-brand. With sales copy, you have the chance to play around with certain button copy to make the journey more direct and compel the customer to feel like they’re getting a good deal.

Here is an examples of sale CTAs:

bv8

Sales blog content

If you have a blog, now is the time to create some content around the sales as a topic on your blog. Doing so will bolster your authority and present customers with various ways to reach your product pages. An example would be ‘Top 10 best Cyber Monday buys’, which should include links back to a range of products within the post.

The term ‘sale’ is quite a broad and general subject, so if you have products within a niche it’s best to create content that focuses on the category type and create content around that. You could even include products from different sites in your line-up, but just be sure that products from your site are included, preferably near the top of the listing. For example, ‘Top 10 Makeup Cyber Monday deals’ or even more niche ‘Top 10 Lipstick Cyber Monday buys’.

While these can be quick wins to employ last minute, ideally they should be included as part of your ongoing optimisation strategy. There are additional SEO improvements we advocate at Builtvisible, such as strategies for fixing expired ecommerce content and dealing with out-of-stock products at scale. Be sure to stay on top of current best practice by regularly checking industry updates and your sales are sure to reflect your efforts.

Emily Rodgers, specialist copywriter at Builtvisible.

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