Jakob Nielson had a great usability article in his April 27 edition of Alertbox. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/headlines-bbc.html To summarize, he discussed the importance of really good headlines for news sites. He recommended they be:
- “short (because people don’t read much online);
- rich in information scent, clearly summarizing the target article;
- front-loaded with the most important keywords (because users often scan only the beginning of list items);
- understandable out of context (because headlines often appear without articles, as in search engine results); and
- predictable, so users know whether they’ll like the full article before they click (because people don’t return to sites that promise more than they deliver).”
It got me thinking about what makes a really good headline for products on the category pages of an ecommerce website. I think all 5 of Mr. Nielson’s qualifications for headlines work for your ecommerce category pages too.
- Short. An ecommerce store is no different from a news site when it comes to how much people will read online.
- Rich in information scent. Product descriptions on category pages need to clearly explain the products with enough information to get shoppers interested enough to click to the product page or add to cart.
- Front-loaded with keywords. Again, I totally agree, users will only scan so much on your pages, make it easy for them to see the terms they are searching for. Additionally, it helps search engines to judge how relevant your page is for those keywords.
- Understandable out of context. Your product descriptions may be automatically generated for meta tags. Don’t fill them with SKU’s or product numbers, unless shoppers use those exact numbers to perform searches, as they may see these in search engine results pages.
- Predictable. Make sure you give shoppers what they expect when they click on your category pages. If they feel they hit a “bait and switch” they just might shop somewhere else instead.
What do you think – what other ‘rules’ for news can we apply to our ecommerce world?
