Do you think lack of content is affecting our rankings?

[Interiorsdan]

we have an online store with over 2,000 products and we're always focusing on growing our products as our customer like a lot of choice. However I would say that 20-25% of our products have information but no description whereas the rest of the site has approx 150 words per products. Do you think being more vigilant about completing the missing descriptions would help our rankings and increase traffic?

There are always mixed messages about Google and how they rank eccomerce websites. So I'm just wondering what people think?

 

[fisicx]

Yes. Content + titles + internal linking is what Google is looking for.

 

[J Howard]

You need a proper SEO service to make it all work. Content do matter but you have to build links so people get to know more about your products.

 

[fisicx]

...but you have to build links so people get to know more about your products.

Not necessarily. Link building for a lot of stuff just isn't needed.

 

[david64]

Definitely. I have a site, which I regularly add new info. Sometimes I will add a new page with one sentence of unique content and other times a paragraph or two. The ones with more text tend to rank at the top of page one and the ones with a sentence tend to rank lower.

Secondly, if you add more text you will be more likely to get search engine traffic from more specific terms that are mentioned in that text.

If you have a site that Google considers authoritative, you can get away with a lot of very thin content. The same site mentioned above is generally outranked by one of the biggest sites in the niche that has a few hundred thousand pages with almost identical content compared with mine that has a few million words of content.

For me, a serious eCom site needs rich descriptions for every product. Not just for Google, but for the visitors.

 

[neils3]

Yes it won't hurt you adding content to those non descriptive pages.

Given the size of your site, make sure none of your pages duplicate content, that will harm you.

 

[iiisark]

The biggest mistake ecommerce sites are doing is to copy/paste descriptions on their product pages from manufacturers websites or from other websites on the web. Lets say your site has exact same descriptions like 10000 other websites. Why Google suppose to rank your product pages infront of the others? To be successful you need to add some value on these pages. Something that your 10000 competitors doesn't offer. Unique descriptions on each product page is a good start.
See what Google spokesman saying about the subject:

 

[DotMedia]

Lack of content will most definitely effect your ranking, there are probably a number of things that you could do to see an improvement... let me know if you'd like me to have a look....

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

we have an online store with over 2,000 products and we're always focusing on growing our products as our customer like a lot of choice. However I would say that 20-25% of our products have information but no description whereas the rest of the site has approx 150 words per products. Do you think being more vigilant about completing the missing descriptions would help our rankings and increase traffic?

There are always mixed messages about Google and how they rank eccomerce websites. So I'm just wondering what people think?

If new content will benefit your visitors then yes

 

[mike fouse]

Hi. As a few have said descriptions should accompany your products for your customers sake not Google. Long keyword phrases sometimes work better than main keywords. Think about ranking better in Yahoo & Bing as this is easier. Look at once you have a new customer how do you keep them as your customer as this is always easier than getting new ones.

Always try and emulate the big eCommerce stores like Amazon. Customer reviews play an integral part in ranking at the moment.

There are hundreds of places on the internet to get traffic from both free and paid without Google.

 

[ronnie7272]

However I would say that 20-25% of our products have information but no description whereas the rest of the site has approx 150 words per products. Do you think being more vigilant about completing the missing descriptions would help our rankings and increase traffic?

If you are unable to add sufficient quality content to your product pages before making them live then amend the code on the product pages so the robots metatag is noindex if the description field (or whichever content fields you are using) is empty or less than a fixed number of characters or whatever criteria you wish to use as defining quality content.

Just because you have 2000+ pages in your website, it doesn't mean you should index every page. You might find your rankings and traffic improve by just indexing 25-50 or 50-100 good targeted product pages rather than indexing 2000+ pages of arguably rubbish content.

Your customers can still enjoy browsing through new product pages as you grow your product range but that doesn't mean you have to sacrifice search engine rankings as a negative side effect. As a general rule of thumb as your website becomes more powerful you can get away with indexing new product pages with little or no content or you can stick to not indexing product pages until they have reached your own defined quality score.

 

[Interiorsdan]

If you are unable to add sufficient quality content to your product pages before making them live then amend the code on the product pages so the robots metatag is noindex if the description field (or whichever content fields you are using) is empty or less than a fixed number of characters or whatever criteria you wish to use as defining quality content.

Just because you have 2000+ pages in your website, it doesn't mean you should index every page. You might find your rankings and traffic improve by just indexing 25-50 or 50-100 good targeted product pages rather than indexing 2000+ pages of arguably rubbish content.

Your customers can still enjoy browsing through new product pages as you grow your product range but that doesn't mean you have to sacrifice search engine rankings as a negative side effect. As a general rule of thumb as your website becomes more powerful you can get away with indexing new product pages with little or no content or you can stick to not indexing product pages until they have reached your own defined quality score.

Hello,

Thanks for your reply. This is a very interesting theory you have brought forward here. So are you saying that the low quality or should I say lacking content is effectively bringing down the good quality/ better quality content?

If this is the case, would it be advisable to focus on getting all our content to the maximum we can?

Thanks again.

 

[techbat]

Completely agree with david If you don't have appropriate description of products how come to expect user engagement with your product pages. Moreover adding more text to your product page will allow search engine to show your product page in search results on more specific terms. However when we talk about content we don't just talk about texts, It includes all forms like images, videos, visuals, graphics etc.... In 2015 every website must keep content that can magnetizes its audience as it will really really increase audience engagement and it will be an add to your search engine credibility..

 

[ronnie7272]

Hello,

Thanks for your reply. This is a very interesting theory you have brought forward here. So are you saying that the low quality or should I say lacking content is effectively bringing down the good quality/ better quality content?

Let's look at this scenario. Let's say you have 2000 pages indexed and Google has penalised 1950 pages leaving you with only 50 pages that could be displayed in it's search results. This means Google has penalised 97.5% of your pages. Why would Google want to rank web pages from a domain which it's deems the owner can't be bothered to make an effort? If you work for Google and are responsible for filtering out useless websites from their search engine rankings, would you want to reward domains where 97.5% of their web pages consistently and historically have onsite optimisation penalties?

Regardless of search engine rankings, why do you want to own and operate a rubbish website anyway? Don't you want to be proud of your website? Don't you want end users to enjoy using your website so much they come back to buy more?

If this is the case, would it be advisable to focus on getting all our content to the maximum we can?

If you have the resources then of course make an effort to consider what is useful content for the end user for each of your products and then add the content.

Ask yourself the following questions.

1. Why am I adding product pages to my website without adding adequate sales information to help the end user make an informed purchasing decision?

2. Do I care about the end user experience?

3. Do I care about improving the conversion rate of my product pages?

4. Am I too lazy or tight to add good content?

 

[sirearl]

4. Am I too lazy or tight to add good content?

I suspect one of the big mistakes is thinking a computer can tell good content.

 

[iiisark]

If I were in your place, I would research the products on the web and will write a editorial review on every single product. These reviews will summarise the good and the bad points of each product.
That task will be time consuming but well worth the effort. On the first place - your users will be much more happier (because of the better user experience) and is most likely to buy your products and to recommend your store to others. On the other hand, great content always serves as link bait so you will get many new links without an effort. Plus, you will get much more traffic from SE because of the value you are offering.

 

[StevePoster]

Lack of content will surely affect your site's visibility. As a marketer our duty is to present our site's content for the targeted users and by using different mediums Google will find our site as a source and provide it in the search results for the users.

 

[seomentor]

There is a rule. If the content is not quality dont show it. It has been said above, use the noindex tag until something of real value is there. Remember though, the quantity of words does not mean quality, especially if it is very similar to other pages in your site.

 

[FreeRangeWeb]

You really should write unique content (meta title and description, alt tag and product description) for all products and also enable clients to review products. I have done it for an art glass company Boha Glass and their sales have increased because of all the positive reviews. Also, I created many pages optimised for glass ornaments with over 300 words of content and all the meta info in place. The site is now up on page one for 'glass ornaments' - just below ebay, John Lewis and Homebase. Not bad for a little business run from home.

The blog articles also help - some I have written have be shared on social media over 1000 times. Google likes social media signals, as well as regular new blog content and social media content. You can always massively discount older stock and put great deals out on your blog / social media / newsletters.

I guess the main point is to invest more time in permanent products and less time on those one-off or seasonal products.

 

[HazelC]

ideally you want 300+ words of content per website page but maybe just creating a few more blog posts instead (1-3 a week should do it), to show Google you're active and to keep using those keywords too. Customers love blogs too! I have some blog posts on my website that give SEO content writing and blogging tips - feel free to have a gander

 

[quickfirerob]

Hi there. I run a content writing service and one of our most popular services is blog writing. I think this speaks volumes as to the number of small businesses that are realising the value of great, regular fresh content. There's a definite SEO / informational split, and balancing the topic output is vital, but variety is the spice of life! Likewise, a social media strategy is very important to run in combination with a solid content strategy.

In some ways, running an e-commerce blog is easier, as you can intersperse informational pieces with new product highlight pieces. Let me know if you need any more advice, and good luck!

 

[Interiorsdan]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all your answers and great advice!

We are now in the process of 'filling in the blanks' and have estimated that when we finsih we will have an additional 110,000 new words of unique content.

Do you think adding 110,000 words of relative, quality and unique content to our website will increase our SEO and rankings?? Honestly?

Thnaks.

 

[fisicx]

Only if people are searching for the stuff you are writing about.

 

[Interiorsdan]

Only if people are searching for the stuff you are writing about.

They are descriptions of products that people are hopefully searching for. We are just being very detailed about the product on how they work, benifits, colours, sizes etc, etc.

 

[fisicx]

In which it should be good - lots of detail means better chances of ranking for long tail and very specific searches.