Help and Guide in Creating a Useful Catalog
There have been many times in my life when I reach out to the internet to help me solve a problem. It’s a good tool, but sometimes it doesn’t yield the results I need. That’s where catalogues come in. A catalogue is simply a list of items, like books that you can purchase and keep. But they also provide some helpful features that make them different from just an ordinary list of products: an overview of pricing, ratings/reviews and links to other catalogues or products by that item's category.
In this guide I will show you how to create a catalogue for your products. You can use any website or tool to do this, but it is recommended that you use WordPress. It’s a platform used frequently and it’s free to set up. Other free options are Weebly, Wix and Tumblr - it’s completely up to you.
Catalogues have many uses other than just for sales, too: they can be used to display the information about your products in one place (for example, reviews). They are also great for sending out newsletters or other forms of announcements. Catalogues can be a very useful tool for many things, so let’s get started.
Getting Started
The first thing to do is to create an account on your chosen website (unless you already have one). Join up, then get started with making your catalogue! You will need to name your catalogue, so type that in first. Next, choose what theme you want. There are thousands of free themes out there (though some might cost you) and they come in lots of different styles and colours to suit any taste. You can also start with a blank page if you like. Now we move onto the content part of the catalogue: namely, the product descriptions and images.
Describing Products
The product descriptions of your catalogue can be a place to store whatever you want. There are lots of options when it comes to describing the products. You can choose to describe the product with text on a page, or you can embed an image directly in the description box (though this will make it slightly more difficult for people who use screens only). It is recommended that you try to have all your products have an image attached, as this makes it easier for people to find. It is also helpful if you repeat your item descriptions across other pages so that users see a full picture of what they are purchasing.
Images
If you decide to have images as part of your product descriptions, you can also choose to have a ‘thumbnail’ image that links to a larger picture. You can either create the images yourself and upload them OR you can use stock image websites like Pexels or Unsplash. If you want to use these, just make sure there are no watermarks (or get rid of them) and that they are the right size before uploading. Thumbnail images must be under 200px x 200px and must be less than 5Mb in size. If these requirements aren’t met, then your thumbnail won’t display properly. You can also link to another page or website by using the thumbnail image.
Describing Categories and Tags
Categories and tags are a great way to organise your products. Categories are the main groupings of items, like ‘Kitchen’, ‘Technology’, ‘Dance’ etc. This can be very useful when you are keeping everything in one place to view later. Tags are also helpful if you want to find more items that could go under the same category. You can also search for things by the tags that you have assigned to them.
*Note: if you want a specific tag to be hidden, click the ‘x’ at the top of the box. This will remove it from your catalogue and anyone who checks your catalogue won’t see it, but it will still be there for you to use elsewhere.
Once you have described your products and chosen what categories and tags they are under, then you just need to add them! Got anything you want to add? Click ‘Add New’ at the top of your page (in WordPress). You can add a description for each category and tag, or as many as you want. When you've added your products, it’s time to sort them!
Sorting Products
Sorting is one of the important parts of your catalogue. You can either sort by a few pre-defined categories OR you can choose to rank all related items (which are called ‘related products’). It's better to include things under a category if they are similar enough, but it's entirely up to you. You can sort your products by price, name, essentiality (how essential the product is), popularity (is this one popular?) OR use some other criteria that suits you best.
Adding Related Products
Related products are essential to the usability of your catalogue. They are products that are related to each other by their category or tag. You can have an unlimited amount of related products, so there’s no need to limit yourself! If you want to add a product, just fill out the product name and description (don't forget to save it!). When you want to add a related product, just click ‘Add New’.
Beside each related product, you will see a drop-down menu with a few other options to make your product stand out. You could change the size of the image by using the ‘Mega’ setting, for example. When adding additional information about your items, it may be helpful to have some keywords that you can use to search for them later on. You can input these in this section of the catalogue.
Adding Additional Product Information
It’s often useful to store an extra bit of information about your products in this section. This could be common questions that you might be asked if someone buys one of your products (like what is it used for?).
Conclusion
Creating a catalogue, or any kind of listing on your website for that matter, is quite a lengthy process, but with the help of this guide you should be able to get started. Whether you go for a web-based or an email-based catalogue, there are many ways to make it work. We hope that this guide has helped you find what works best for your business!
*Note: Although we’ve used WordPress platform throughout this post to provide a variety of examples, we really encourage you to try something else. Hopefully this post has inspired you to start your own online business!
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