Grow Your Business Online with Webplus Shop!

Though everyone knows how essential it is to have products in their online store, many don’t realize the importance of using effective categories to increase orders. Categories serve a few different purposes in online businesses.

1. Categories group similar products together, allowing customers to find what they’re interested in easily.
2. They increase the number of potential customers visiting the store by using effective search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.
3. Categories can increase sales by encouraging customers to purchase accessories to their main purchase.

These goals are best met if the categories used are effectively. You also should remember that, if you’re using Webplus Shop, you can have subcategories under your main categories. This is an art that comes with experimentation, but there are a few basic rules of thumb that can help.

1. Don’t have too many top-level categories. If you use store design layouts that display the categories across the top of your web page, such as layouts 1 and 2, having too many top-level categories may make the categories wrap to another line, which may make your online store less professional.
2. Keep the top-level categories relatively general if you have lots of products. You can use subcategories to further group them.
3. There is no limit to the number of subcategories, or the number of levels of subcategories, that your store may have. With this in mind, if your categories are too detailed they may end up with only one or two products in them which will make your online store harder for your customers to navigate.
4. You can put a product in as many categories as needed. For example, if you sell a children’s shirt and you have a category for Children’s Clothing and another category for Shirts, you can put the children’s shirt in both categories. Cross-referencing your products like this will make them easier to find, since your customers won’t have to guess which category it is in.
5. Don’t use category names that are too long. This may make them wrap to the next line in all design layouts, or may push your featured products over too much. You may use the category page SEO options to add keywords for search engines.
6. Use popular keywords for the category names as much as possible, while keeping them relatively short. This will help drive customers to your store from search engines.
7. It is recommended that you check your store’s appearance by clicking “View Shop” in the merchant interface when you finished entering your categories, to make sure it looks the way you want.

Effectively using categories in your online store will help your customers find your store, find the products they want to buy, and help increase your sales.