Category page copy

What category page copy is

Category page copy is the writing that sits around a grid of products: a short introduction above it, and a longer piece below it. It tells a shopper who has landed there that they are in the right aisle, explains how the range is divided, and answers the one or two questions that decide which branch of the range they should be looking at. On most shops it is the only text on the page.

That matters more than it sounds. A grid of thirty products is a grid of thirty names and thirty prices. There is nothing on it for a person to read and nothing on it to tell anyone what the page is about. Category page copy is not a product description, which lives on the item itself, and it is not a buying guide, which is a separate page a shopper chooses to read. It is the short piece of orientation that has to work for somebody who did not choose to read anything.

When you need it

You need it when your shop has categories a person could plausibly land on directly. If someone typed the name of a range rather than the name of a product, the page they meet has to answer that. You also need it when the range splits in a way that is obvious to you and invisible to a shopper: three grades of the same thing, or a size system that is not the one they know.

The third case is a shop that has been adding categories for years and now has four pages that overlap. That is not a writing problem first. Consolidating the pages that compete with each other comes before anyone writes new copy for all four. And if the specific problem is being found rather than being understood, the narrower service is category and collection copy in the search pillar, which starts from the phrases shoppers actually type.

Where the copy goes

There are two slots, and they do different jobs.

• Above the grid: forty to seventy words. One sentence confirming what this range is, one that says how it is divided, one that tells the shopper what to do next. That is all. This block sits between a shopper and the products they came for, and every extra line pushes the first row of products further down a phone screen.
• Below the grid: two hundred to four hundred words. The substance. How to choose between the branches of the range, what the sizing or grading system means, delivery and returns as they apply to this category, and the two or three questions your staff are asked about it most.
• The headings in between. Sub-headings within the lower block, each one a question a shopper has, so a person scanning can stop at theirs.
• The internal links. To the neighbouring categories, to the guide if one exists, and to the two or three products that are the usual right answer.

The wrong answer, and the common one, is a wall of text above the grid. It is written to give the page something to be about, and it succeeds at that while pushing every product below the fold. Shoppers scroll past it without reading a word, which means the page has traded its shop window for a paragraph nobody finished.

What you get

The copy for each category. Both blocks written per page, in a document keyed to your category URLs, with the heading, the title tag and the meta description filled in.

A category map. One sheet listing every category, what distinguishes it from the one next to it, and which categories should link to which. This is usually the part that changes the shop most.

A pattern for the rest. The section order and word counts, so your own people can write a new category page in an hour when a range is added.

A worked example

An illustration. A Winnipeg workwear retailer sells online and has thirty-one category pages. Every one of them opens with the same four hundred words about quality and service, with the category name swapped in, sitting above the products. Shoppers arriving on the insulated bib overalls page see no overalls until they scroll twice.

The rewrite cuts the top block to fifty words: what the range covers, how it splits between regular and tall sizing, and a line pointing anyone who is unsure to the fit chart. The products now start immediately. Below the grid, four hundred words deal with the questions that were arriving by phone: how the tall sizing runs against a standard size, which insulation ratings suit which work, whether the overalls fit over steel-toed boots, and how exchanges work in the middle of winter. Thirty-one near-identical pages become thirty-one pages a person could tell apart.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. How the shop is organised, which categories bring traffic, and what shoppers phone to ask. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. The number of categories, the two blocks per page, and the category map, agreed before anything starts.
3. The category map. One week. You confirm the structure, including any pages that should be merged, before copy is written.
4. The copy, in batches. Five to eight categories at a time, so you can publish as they arrive. One round of changes per page.
5. Handover. The full set, the map and the pattern document, with a short call for whoever will write the next one.

Two to four weeks for a set of ten to thirty categories is typical.

What it costs

Category page copy is quoted as a fixed price in CAD after the half-hour call. It is priced per category, and the rate drops across a set, because the second page in a shop is much faster than the first. What moves the figure is how many categories there are, whether the structure needs sorting out before writing, and how much of the answer already exists in your staff's heads rather than in writing. The number is agreed before the work starts, and the pricing page explains how quotes are built here.

What happens next

A category page that orients a shopper properly usually exposes the next weak link. The grid beneath it still carries supplier text, which is what writing each item individually deals with. Ranges where people still hesitate between three options tend to get a guide that makes the choice for them. And the questions that keep arriving after the sale belong on the item itself as answers published before someone buys. None of that is assumed. The category copy is complete on its own.