Web Copywriting
How to Write Copy for an Ecommerce Category Page
Category pages usually outrank product pages and usually carry the least copy on the site — often a paragraph of keywords pushed below the fold.
On most ecommerce sites the category page earns more search traffic than any individual product, and carries less considered copy than any page on the site — typically a keyword paragraph pushed underneath the product grid, where it exists to be crawled rather than read.
The Job Is Helping Someone Choose
A visitor on a category page has decided roughly what they want and not which one. Everything useful the page can do follows from that: narrow the field, explain the differences that matter, and say who each option suits.
That is a different job from a product description, which persuades once the choice is nearly made. It is also why copying the product page tone up to the category level does not work — you are addressing someone one step earlier.
The question to answer at the top of the page: which of these is right for me, and how do I tell? Most category pages answer neither, and leave the shopper to work it out from thumbnails.
The Block Under the Grid Is Not Read
The convention of putting 400 words of category copy beneath the products exists because someone decided the page needed text for SEO and nobody wanted it above the products. It is read by almost nobody, which everyone involved quietly knows.
The alternative is not more words at the top — it is fewer, placed where they help. Two or three sentences above the grid that frame the choice, and any genuine depth further down for the minority who want it.
- Above the grid: what this category covers, the one or two variables that decide between options, and anything that prevents a wrong purchase.
- Beside the filters: a line explaining what a filter actually means, where the term is not self-evident. Frequently the highest-value copy on the page.
- Below the grid: buying guidance, care and compatibility notes, and the genuine questions — for the smaller group still deciding after scrolling.
Say What Is Not Here
A line stating what the category excludes, and where that thing lives instead, saves the visitor a search and saves you a bounce. Most category pages are silent on this and rely on the shopper inferring the boundary from what happens to be in stock.
Subcategories Have to Be Distinct
Where several subcategories cover similar ground, writing each one generically produces pages that compete with each other for the same query and satisfy none of it. Each needs a reason to exist that a shopper would recognise, and copy that states it.
Watch for the same paragraph templated across forty categories with the category name swapped in. It reads as automated because it is, and it gives a set of pages nothing to distinguish them — the same problem as running the manufacturer's text on every product.
Seasonal and Empty States
Categories go out of stock and seasonal ones empty entirely, and the copy is almost never written for that. A category page showing nothing, with a paragraph describing a full range, is a worse experience than a page that says plainly what is unavailable, when it returns, and what to look at meanwhile.
Keep It Shorter Than You Think
Long category copy is usually a symptom of writing for a crawler rather than a shopper. If the page needs 800 words to explain the choice, the category is probably too broad, and splitting it will serve both the reader and the search engine better than the essay will.
The same logic that sets product description length applies one level up — see how long a product description should be. We write both through our product description service and site-wide through website copywriting.