Planning
How to organise a product catalogue website
A catalogue works when a buyer can get from a need to the right product in a few clicks. This is a practical structure, with a worked example and honest limits for sites without a search engine of their own.
A manufacturer or supplier with a large range has an organising problem before it has a design problem. A buyer arrives with a need (a material, a size, an application) and wants to reach the right product, check it, and ask for a quote. Structure decides whether that is easy.
Three levels are usually enough
- Range overview. One page that explains the main groups, with a short description of each and links to them.
- Category pages. One page per group of related products: what the group is for, the products in it, and how to choose between them.
- Product pages. One page per product, or per product family when the items differ only by size or grade, with specifications and an enquiry action.
Going deeper than three levels often hides products. If a category holds hundreds of items, split it by something a buyer understands (application or material), not by something internal (your stock codes).
Worked example: a fastener supplier
This is an imaginary business used only to show the structure.
- Range overview: Fasteners.
- Categories: Bolts and screws; Nuts and washers; Anchors; Fixing kits.
- Under Bolts and screws, product families: Hex bolts; Socket screws; Machine screws.
- A Hex bolts page shows a table: material, grade, diameter, length, finish, standard, and the data sheet for that family.
If the same bolt exists in 30 lengths, that is one product family with a table, not 30 near-identical pages. Thirty thin pages would repeat the same text and make each harder to find.
What each product page should hold
- A clear name, the way a buyer would say it.
- A short statement of what it is and what it is used for.
- The specifications as a table, using the units your buyers use.
- Photographs with descriptive alt text, sized to load quickly on a phone.
- The data sheet or drawing for download, linked from this page.
- A visible action: call, message or request a quote, with a sentence on what to send (product, quantity, delivery place).
- Links to related products and back to its category.
Organising technical product information
Technical buyers compare products by their numbers. A page that buries those numbers in a paragraph, or in a PDF only, makes the comparison hard. These habits keep technical information usable:
- One table per product family, same rows in the same order. If every page lists material, grade, size range, standard and finish in that order, a buyer can open two pages and compare them.
- A unit on every number, and the same unit across pages. Mixed units are a common source of wrong orders.
- Say what a value is. A “typical” value, a range and a guaranteed limit are different promises. Label which one you are giving, and give the test method or standard only when it really applies.
- Variants belong in the table, not in new pages. A product sold in several sizes or grades is one family with rows, unless the variants have different uses or are searched for separately.
- Keep the data sheet and the page in agreement. When a specification changes, change both on the same day, and put the revision date on the sheet. A page and a sheet that disagree cost more trust than a missing sheet.
- Application next to specification. Buyers often start from the job (“what do I need for this?”) and only then read the numbers. Link each product to the application pages that use it and each application page back to the products.
- Certificates and approvals only if you hold them, with the certificate number or issuer where it can be checked.
The structure matters more than the product. These rules fit a fastener supplier, a chemicals trader or a machine builder alike; the numbers change, the layout does not. If the technical content is not yet written down in one place, gathering it is the longest part of the project; what to prepare before a website project lists what to collect.
Addresses that make sense
Descriptive words in the address help people and search engines understand a page. Google recommends words rather than long strings of numbers, hyphens between words, and one consistent form. For the example:
/products/bolts-and-screws/hex-bolts/
Avoid addresses built from codes or from filters, and avoid creating several addresses for the same product, because each duplicate competes with the others.
Links and navigation
Every important page should be reachable from another through a normal link with descriptive wording. Google follows links made with standard anchors that have a real address; links that need a script to work may be missed. A category page should link to every product in it, and each product should link back. That is also what lets a visitor find things without a search box.
Data sheets and downloads
Google can index PDF files, so a text-based data sheet can be found. Even so, the product page should hold the key facts in normal page text, because a person on a phone needs them without opening a file. Give the file a meaningful name, keep the file size reasonable, and state what it is (“Hex bolt data sheet, PDF”) in the link.
What a static catalogue cannot do
My packages are frontend work. They do not include a live search engine, filters that recalculate results, customer accounts, price lists behind a login or a link to your stock system, unless a proposal explicitly agrees otherwise. If your catalogue has thousands of items that change daily, you need a different kind of system and probably a different provider. For a range of dozens to a few hundred products, a clear structure and good categories usually serve a buyer well.
Check before you build
- Can a new buyer reach any product in three clicks from the home page?
- Does every product have its own specifications, in the same order?
- Is every document linked from the product it belongs to?
- Can a visitor ask for a quote from every product page?
The product catalogue page shows what I build and the two live manufacturer websites I made. If you would like to plan your structure with me, message or call Harman.