The key to the success of a webshop lies in the way the categorization is set up here and ultimately how the products are presented. Depending on the industry and products, the structure of the categories and the presentation of the products is very different. Generally valid advice and tips are therefore very difficult. It does not always help to look at the competitor’s site to find out the optimal structure for yourself. And you want to stand out positively from the competition. Therefore, here are my thoughts, which I have made in the course of 2 projects.

The more lovingly a store is decorated, the more it invites you to browse and buy. This is a very old wisdom. Even discounters are increasingly moving away from simply offering their products to customers on pallets in torn open cartons. So the key to the success of a webshop is how is the categorization structured and how are the products presented. In terms of JTL-Wawi, the store owner should spend most of his time in the Products window. And right up front way: “I consider it a complete no-go to copy or use product descriptions, category descriptions, product images, category images or any other content from manufacturers, suppliers or competitors!” With consideration I have excluded here product names or category designations.

In the small mindmap below I tried to show which tasks the categories have in JTL-Wawi and in the store. The most important tasks for me are to help with search engine optimization, search and filter help for visitors to the store and that the category pages are excellent landing pages for potential buyers. But let’s proceed in order as we plan our category tree.

Category names and names

This is the only place where you can copy your competitors without restraint. Feel free to take your time and look at as many of your competitors’ webshops and take screenshots of the pages. Write down the category names you use on a piece of paper and look at the layout in the store. Man is a creature of habit and your customer wants to find your products quickly and easily. Here they can proceed according to the pattern, often used is the correct category name. There is not much more to say about it.

Design and structure

3-2-1-Meins – This is how ebay once advertised. I’ll turn this advertising slogan into 1-2-3-Meins. Now this is not new wisdom either. The fewer clicks the potential customer has to get to the desired item, the better it is. More than three category levels below the root category no longer make sense.

In practice, it makes sense to work with more than one root category. For example, I would create a separate root category for each platform in JTL-Wawi. So you could create the root category Webshop, where the subcategories for the webshop are created. These do not have to be identical to the root category Sales, as this should be optimized for the sales staff who are to take orders from the bicycle dealers on the phone. And then a root category import, which serves as a collection point for new items from the item import with the ant. At the very end, I created the root category “New Items” in my sample environment. New articles and templates for creating new articles are stored here. The category tree could look like the screenshot below.

Elaborate categories

Before you start creating the first products in the individual categories, you should clarify a few questions:

1. Which categories should be displayed in the store on the home page?
2. Which keywords are relevant for each store category?
3. Which category image should be used and what message should it convey?

Behind these questions is the consideration that the category pages in the web store are also landing pages through which potential customers reach the web store via Google’s organic search. So, before I frantically get images and start writing flowery texts, I first check which keywords in my category descriptions will bring relatively good results in Google search. Google also gives me great help here with the Google Adwords Keyword Planner.

Via the item “Search ideas for new keywords and ad groups” the Keywordplanner suggests new keywords matching my category names and the domain used, which I can use in the category descriptions. Simply enter the category name there under Product or Service, enter your domain names and the product category, e.g. Bicycles and Accessories, and then click the Get Ideas button. After that, the Keyword Planner will give you a list of suggestions under the Keyword Ideas tab. In this example, for example, the combination rocky mountain bike has 22,000 searches per month with low competition. So one ideal for my small sample project

Conclusion:

I grab my Rocky Mountain bike now to ride it into the Rocky terrain. Of course, I am not alone on the road. A photographer accompanies me to take some natural and beautiful shots of this tour. Texting afterwards should then be a breeze.

Before the first category and the first product is created in JTL-Wawi, a lot of research work is necessary to avoid mistakes in advance. Here, I should even do a close analysis of my competitors and look very closely at how they do it. When it comes to texts and images, it is appropriate to go your own way. Help here can be the keyword planner from Google. It is not always advisable to choose the keywords with the highest search queries. Keywords with a medium query level but low competition can often bring better results.

I hope I could help you, Yours Michael Schäfer

Ali Oukassi

Mohamed Ali Oukassi ist Gründer und Inhaber von eBakery. Er hat mehr als zwölf Jahre Erfahrung in der E-Commerce Welt. Mit seinem Team aus Experten kann er jeden Bereich abdecken und lebt den Full-Service-Gedanken, egal ob es um die Erstellung / Umstellung eines Shops, die Berartung hinsichtlich des richtigen Shopsystems, Marketingfragen, SEO oder auch das Thema Social Media Integration geht. Gut vernetzt und mit einem leistungsstarken Personal im Rücken, nimmt er sich jeder Herausforderung im E-Commerce an.