Detail Pages: Designing Profitable Websites

Finally, visitors have made it to the detailed page after working through the category page, or even better they came from a search engine. Either way now is not the time to relax conversion efforts, if anything, now is the time to put them into full effect. Getting visitors to commit to the process is the hardest part, however if you provide them with enough valued information including content, imagery, support, and desired call to action you are in good shape. Maintain your visitor’s interest and seal the conversion.

Detail pages can easily make or break a sale thus making it critically important to keep these pages organized and maintain user attention, ultimately leading them to the conversion process. While working with detail pages take into measure the following:

Outline detailed goals and guidelines.

The ultimate goal behind any detail page is to get visitors to make a purchase, accept an offer, or to move forward in the conversion process. In doing so you typically want to outline products or offer details, clear any confusion, promote sales and specials, and possibly supply alternative conversion procedure.

Be aware of, and address, visitor’s questions.

Detail pages need to be full of information, however presented in an appealing manner. Visitors are here because they are interested in your product or services, but chances are they still have quite a few questions like: Price? Main Features? Look? How’s it work? What does it include, if anything? Etc.

Detail pages should work as landing pages too.

A good detail page should work as a landing page on top of being a detailed page. Reason being users are known to search for specific products thus leading them straight to the detailed page. Companies and organizations not capable of developing landing pages may even push advertised traffic to these pages.

Avoid jumbling and disorder.

While it is important to load up your detail page with relevant information it is possible to go too far, and often times detail pages do. People are not interested in animated banner ads or today’s weather. Make sure that they can quickly find the offer and complete the desired call to action.

Maintain user attention and distinctly layout content.

Perhaps the most important thing to do within a detail page is to maintain user attention. The moment you have lost them is the moment your conversion disappears. Maintaining attention is becoming more difficult with instant messaging and other online distractions, but keeping your content layout distinctive you will be able to focus user attention to the product or offer.

Use clean and pure images and media.

This is very important! No one will make a purchase if your product or service looks the slight bit sketchy. Only use the best photography possible. Use videos or presentations to display products and services as long as it does not require users to leave the page or becomes obtrusive.

Display product or item in intended environment.

Users are more likely to obtain a better understanding of a product if they can see it in use or in its natural environment. The best example of this is clothing. Picturing clothing on a flat surface doesn’t give users an understanding of the fitting or shape, however on a model they are able to see new aspects.

Present procedure or success if applicable.

If you are offering a service it may be difficult to present product images. In this case try to display an image that best represents your service procedure or success. For example, a tour guide could show clients enjoying their tour, a dentist could show images of pretty teeth, and so forth.

Show multiple angles.

Perhaps the best part about shopping is being able to pick up a product and truly examine it, however this is not possible online. Provide users with multiple images of a product including front, back, side to side, and perhaps a 360-degree view if possible. Users are interested in knowing what the a product really looks like and allowing them to see it and answering their questions gives them a full understanding.

Provide straightforward and detailed headings.

A straightforward and detailed heading will remind visitors they are on the correct page, as well as provide a strong search engine optimization effort.

List advantages and qualities.

Visitors want to be able to quickly scan a product description to see if this is really what they are looking for. Providing a list of advantages or qualities of the specific product will only help. Before creating an extraneous list make sure you only list items that visitors will truly care about or items that will differentiate the product from others.

Supply connected items or services.

Using a “you may also like” or additional accessories to a detail page can increase the attraction to a product. It is important to make sure that the items shown are relevant and will be an added value. However keep in mind that this may also potentially distract users from the primary offer, so approach diligently.

Promote sales and special offers noticeably.

In this day and age people are trained to look for special promotions or offers, especially on the internet. Promote your sales and special offers noticeably and distinctively from the rest of the text on the page. When doing so be sure to use legible and easily understood text.

Utilize appealing descriptions.

Make your description an extension of the product itself. Do not go into rambling detail about how it is a car, has four tires, and an engine. Describe the product with a deep and strong meaning so that a user would understand it without even seeing it. Not everyone will read the description but the ones who do will be more inclined to complete the call to action.

Integrate social response options.

More and more websites are integrating the option for users to leave comments, reviews, rate products, and view the number of downloads or views. With the popularity of these social feedback options on the rise users are beginning to look for them, and since they do provide an outside source recognized to be impartial they provide added support to detailed pages.

Use a clear and uncomplicated call to action or purchase process.

When it comes to the call to action or purchase process make sure to have a clear and uncomplicated layout insuring that users will not pass over it. For example, when selling t-shirts online provide option selections for size and color readily, as well as intelligible placement for the “Add to Cart” or “Purchase” button. This will clean up the call to action making it easier to understand for users.

Show product availability.

A lot of companies will only show the availability of a product once it is added to the shopping cart or worse once the product is purchased. The best place for product availability is on the detail page itself. This will keep users informed and avoid them from having to go through the aggravation of finding out a product is unavailable.