E-commerce websites thrive on quality product descriptions. In fact here is the statistic, that will interest you a lot:- e-commerce conversion rates have seen an increase of 30% more (sometimes 100%) when the content description quality has been bettered. So, not only is the traffic leading to sales, the amount of traffic coming in every day also steadily increasing. All because, a unique copy is written for each product. It is highly inadvisable to rely on images to sell products, or use the manufacturer’s product description or even use inadequate copy. So, here is how unique product description helps:
1. Duplicate Content Is Like Cancer For Your Site: It is really important for your e-commerce website to have content that is not duplicate. Search engines do not like duplicate content. They are making huge efforts to ensure that only ‘quality content’ reaches their search engine results. Google brings the Panda update, which is an algorithm update, that decides how Google ranks the websites. The entire effort is put by the search engine giant to ensure that search results are high quality and more and more relevant. The Panda 2.3 has just been launched as well so it forms one of the roughly 500 changes Google makes to its ranking algorithms each year. As Google has been quoted, “We’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content. We’ll continue to explore ways to reduce spam, including new ways for users to give more explicit feedback about spammy and low-quality sites. As “pure webspam” has decreased over time, attention has shifted instead to “content farms,” which are sites with shallow or low-quality content.” This means, the Panda will thrash you for poor quality content. So, if your product pages are lacking quality information, your site will most likely lose out on good rankings. What’s even worse, search engines may even penalize you for duplicate content. Make sure that the hundreds of pages on your site, with thousands of product descriptions, do not carry duplicate content. This is a challenging task, as other websites too carry the same products, so to be different from all is tough. But you have to work on it, as there is no other way around it.
2. More Visibility In Organic Search: So, you need to work on product descriptions, and you will realise that customizing your product descriptions is all that’s needed to help your product pages show up in organic searches. But it is important to make sure that your keywords for every page-product-product category is kept in prominence while writing the description. The manufacturer’s product description too has some important keywords for each product -so you must remember to retain those keywords used in the original content too, while ensuring that the other possible keywords are also mentioned in the new copy.
This has two advantages-
Firstly, your product pages will most probably rank above those of other retailers for the same keywords in the product descriptions.
Secondly, your product pages will show up for a larger set of search terms also.
Also, the architecture of your product pages must support indexing of the content in product descriptions. This will help in better search engine rankings.
3. More Conversions With Unique Content: As an e-commerce website owner, you have laid down thousands of products before users, and expect them to buy. But why will they do that unless you give them something unique. Only then, will they actually click on the ‘Buy’ button.
So, do not fall in the trap of just putting up manufacturer’s descriptions, as the users will find it on 50 other sites. It is a known fact that manufacturer-supplied product descriptions are often bland. What will make you different? The answer is being more informative and different from them all. People prefer to know more and more about the product before they buy it. As during online shopping, you cannot feel and see the product physically, that is why words are really important in helping users make a purchase decision. In fact, studies have shown that consumers are reluctant to buy from sites that don’t include enough information to answer all their questions. So, you have to make sure that your well-written product descriptions must be vast and include every information that a user might want in regards to the product. This way, if you have a product, that is featured by any other site, you will stand apart with your information on the product. People will quench their thirst for more and more information on the product, and this will give them the satisfaction that they are buying from a valid outlet. They will not hesitate in making the purchase, as your vast content has done the job of a fast talking salesman. That is why, those who will land on your pages, will mostly lead to conversions.
4. More Credibility With Unique Content: You are not like others- you do not have the manufacturer’s product descriptions-you tell much more than just the colour of the product. This will establish you as a trusted source of information. Your credibility will increase among the users as a reliable source of information about the product. Consumers are more likely to trust a web site that has invested in well-written, thorough product information. You will create a niche for your site in the online retail market with your well researched product descriptions. You will become an authority of sorts. Users will set you apart as a place that gives them much more than just the price information on the product.
5. More Prominent Self-Branding Unique Content: Your e-commerce site will become a brand in itself. Your site will have unique product descriptions on all the pages, through out the website. This will give your site its own tone that will let you build your own store brand. Your site will provide a consistent-persuasive and at the same time a reliable and seamless voice. This will allow you to connect with the customer like never before. This bond that you will form, will create and support greater shopper loyalty.
To Conclude: The task is tremendous, for an e-commerce website, to write unique content and product descriptions for millions of products in the hundreds and thousands of site pages. But you have to take it up, as the payoff will include- greater search engine visibility, better conversions and higher brand equity.
Be unique- it pays.
