One aspect of SEO content creation that is often overlooked is writing product descriptions. While eye-catching articles and thought leadership-based blogs will generally deliver more engagement for your brand, the nuts and bolts of a concise and optimised e-commerce page can do wonders during the sales cycle as you attempt to get buyers to checkout and make purchases.
The marketing mindset for product pages is slightly different to other forms of content, for this reason. These pages will be very brand-focused with in-depth product and service details, in contrast to blogs that are centred around the customer and their challenges and needs. With the right SEO strategy, you can get people to these pages from search engines and then drive sales and revenue. Here are seven tips for success:
Tweak your keyword strategy
Product pages need to be optimised for transactional intent as potential customers will often be clicking through from search with the aim of buying something immediately. Brainstorming product-focused topics and keywords and including these in the title, meta description and product description is key to ranking for the terms that buyers will be searching for. Make sure these keywords are hyper-relevant to the product, even if your research suggests they don’t have a high volume.
Write targeted titles and descriptions
Writing title tags for product pages is very different to blogs. The latter requires a creative hook that will catch the reader’s eye. Product pages are more prosaic in comparison. You will need to include the brand of the product, its name, the model number and any other key information such as codes or dimensions. Searcher’s queries will often include specific product names and numbers, so it’s important that you optimise titles accordingly.
Meta descriptions should be more engaging. These short snippets of text will be presented in search below the link, so make sure you offer a compelling summary of the product and try to include a target keyword or two. The meta description should have a maximum of 155 characters.
Create unique product descriptions
Product pages are at greater risk of being flagged as duplicate content by Google, as they feature product information that is recycled across the web by different sellers. Stock descriptions provided by manufacturers are not SEO-optimised either and often lack key details and compelling prose and writing. Therefore, a golden rule for product-page SEO is to make all content unique. Don’t rely on third-party descriptions – always write something new and engaging for each page. Using the best SEO services can help if you don’t have an in-house team for this.
Use internal links from blogs
Google’s John Mueller has admitted in the past that product pages don’t usually rank as well as blog posts, even though the former can be more important for a brand. He advises using internal linking to connect the two to create a trickle-down effect from blogs that are authoritative and feature near the top of SERPs.
He also recommends strategically linking to several of your most important products instead of directing users to a wider range of pages. He notes: “So if you say, these are products where you earn the most money from, or that are the most popular or maybe they’re the easiest to sell, something like that, then those are the kind of things where with internal linking you can …promote those a little bit.”
Add structured data
Another way to boost the visibility of product pages in search is by adding structured data, also known as schema markup, so they qualify for Google’s rich results. This markup is also used by Google to identify and better understand product pages and information. Adding structured data is not a simple process for a layman as it requires coding, so you will need to liaise with a developer.
There are different types of schema that you can add to e-commerce pages, including “product”, which informs search engines about product features such as its colour and dimensions, and “offer”, which provides information about price and stock levels. Failing to add structured data can hurt your site rank.
Optimise technical SEO
There’s nothing more frustrating for a buyer than long load times when navigating to a product page. That’s why you should optimise technical elements to deliver fast, reliable and intuitive user experiences. Auditing for technical issues is a good place to start. Problems that could be holding your pages back include 302 redirects, 404 pages, broken links and slow load times.
Partnering with an SEO agency to audit your web pages will help you to identify any issues so you can resolve them quickly. If you need to prioritise one area, make sure your pages are fast and mobile-optimised so visitors can buy your products with ease across devices. Lightning-fast load times will also lower bounce rates and improve overall retention. Google recommends targeting speeds of less than three seconds.
Include user-generated content (reviews)
Your product description will do the heavy lifting in terms of selling a product but customers also want to see unbiased views from other consumers. Pew Research found nine in 10 people read reviews before making a purchase. Including a section where customers can leave reviews and ratings is important for this reason.
Don’t worry about any negative feedback, either, as these comments can provide balance, especially if you respond below them to offer assistance. Again, these ratings and reviews should be marked up as structured data to allow Google to include them in rich results.
Creating product pages shouldn’t be a one-and-done process. You can test pages using tools like Google Analytics to see how they’re performing and to tease out insights about the way people interact with them. With these insights, you can make tweaks and improvements to copy and SEO to ensure they hit the right notes when a visitor lands on them.
If you want to audit your product pages or need a helping hand with creating content that is optimised to complement your SEO campaigns, Atlas SEO has a range of industry-leading services available. Our team of talented writers can craft website content and e-commerce copy organically that matches your brand identity and generates sales. Contact us today to find out more.
