A well-made, high-converting product landing page is worth its weight in gold for any website. The problem is that not all product pages are created equal. That need for success is exactly why it’s essential to optimize your product pages.
While product pages are simple in theory, it’s not always easy to create pages that potential customers will find organically. This is especially true for businesses like industrial companies or other entities with more technical or custom-engineered products. Regardless of whether you have an ecommerce site or need product pages that drive form fills, your products need well-optimized landing pages to succeed.
Ready to learn how you can start driving traffic and boosting conversions for your site? In this article we’ll focus specifically on how to improve the ranking of your product landing pages that will help users find your business when the time is right.
Optimize Your Internal Linking Strategy
Do you have high performing blog articles that are ripe for linking to targeted product pages? The term ‘internal link’ refers to any link that points from one page to another page within your website. Adding these links is a very basic but useful SEO strategy. Don't be tempted to link to every product in your arsenal – keep it simple, use descript text inside the link tag, and focus on just one or two specific products per post.
Additionally, you might want to try to feature or link that same product on your home page. The key here is to focus on the product that is most important and focus your efforts on that and the other product pages users should funnel through. Effective internal linking will keep your users on your site longer and confirm that you have the information and experience they need.
Use Content and SEO Fundamentals
There are a variety of tools and strategies that businesses can use to optimize their online content for success. Below is a roundup of critical SEO fundamentals with a brief description to get you started.
Use schema (rich snippets) markup
Schema is an extra bit of HTML structure that can be added to the content of your website to give it additional semantic meaning. When Google's crawlers scan your site, this data is used to better match search queries.
There are many kinds of schema (Products, events, locations, etc.). You can find the ones that apply to your content here: https://schema.org/docs/schemas.html
Use descriptive text in the links to the product page (from other pages)
Don’t use link text like “Click here” or “read more” unless you are trying to rank for those keywords (which I highly doubt). Instead, use a unique and descriptive text snippet such as the name of the specific product. That tells your users (and Google) much more about the page they are about to click through to.
Make the descriptive product name the H1 tag
Just like the link text advice above, you’ll want to make sure that you get that unique product name and keyword in the H1 page header of the product page as well. Make sure your user sees it right away so they know they are in the right place.
Use descriptive files names and alt text for the product images
Don’t ignore Google Images search! By using a descriptive (and accurate) file name with alt text on your images, you stand a better chance of showing up in more places than just Google’s main search engine results page.
Write quality, compelling content
Simply put, the stronger the content on your actual product detail pages, the more likely they are to rank. You can’t rank for keywords that your user can’t read on the page or aren't relevant to your content. Period. In addition, Google names quality of content as one of the key factors it uses for ranking pages. As such, you’ll want to make sure that your content is authoritative, trustworthy, and written well.
Research Your Own Product
This process just takes a little time and research. Search your product (use incognito mode to avoid any biased search results) to learn what pops up in the results.
Do you have to scroll to page four to find your listing? Whether it's on page one or page eight, take note. You now know where your product currently ranks – and you'll be working to improve that.
It’s now time to do some in-depth keyword research. Here’s a tip – talk to your sales team and ask them what they’re saying to prospects or how their new clients found them online. Learn what those new clients searched (keywords) and how they found your product. You might be surprised what you learn.
Improve the User Experience
A good user experience is an essential part for proper product page optimization. You want to make sure the people buying your products are having a good experience. Here are a few was that you can please both users and Google through use experience improvements.
Have a clear call-to-action (CTA)
Every product page needs a good call to action. Unfortunately, some sites do a poor job making it stand out from everything else on the page. That’s a problem when that CTA is the most important component for anyone trying to make a sale.
A good CTA should be immediately visible as soon as your user reaches one of your product pages. It’s also essential to make sure that nothing gets in the way of your CTA. A cluttered design or too much product description can distract users from that all-important button. In addition, make sure nothing will block users from seeing or accessing your CTA, whether it’s a rogue pop-up or a design that doesn’t translate well to mobile.
Use high-quality images and videos
Product photos and videos are more than just flashy features – they’re key tools for optimizing your page. These assets allow your product page to quickly convey key product information, set realistic expectations, and display product quality (in addition to the aforementioned SEO advantages). Given that 25 percent of ecommerce sites have insufficient photos, having quality imagery is a big starting point for your product pages.
Of course, some of those benefits come with some caveats. You’ll want to make sure that any images and videos you use to show your products are good. Poor quality will lead to a bad first impression of your products, so avoid any low-resolution images or other assets that don’t look great. It’s also not a bad idea to add multiple assets if possible, as 33 percent of users prefer to see multiple photos according to a study by Shopify.
Don’t waste users’ time
Visual assets and other features are certainly nice, but they can come at a cost – page speed. The amount of time it takes your product pages to load is both a critical factor for your users and Google. Nearly half of consumers expect page speeds of less than two seconds, so a “slow” page will cause people to leave. Meanwhile, Google highlights page speed as a crucial factor for its search algorithm – and that’s only become more important with the introduction of Google’s Core Web Vitals standards.
What does that mean for you? To start, make sure you take the right steps to optimize your images for page speed – here’s a handy image optimization breakdown if you need it. Aside from that, factors such as server limitations, HTTP requests, and fonts can all impact your page speed. Check out our primer on site speed for more info on how you can keep your load times to a minimum.
Set Your Business Up for Online Success with Optimized Product Landing Pages
Whether you sell industrial equipment, dog food, or any other product, quality product landing pages play a pivotal part in your business' success. Following our tips above and other basic SEO best practices will put you on the right track to not only improve your organic rankings, but also the user experience on your pages.
Of course, this improvement process can take some time and expertise. We can assure you this process requires ongoing attention and will not magically change overnight. If you need any assistance on how or where to start with your industrial product page ranking, we’re here to help.
